Rediscover Worship: Return to the Cross!
It was back in 1959. Let's see, come on Leo, you can do it. Not bad man. That man right there is Leo Goaas, he's former NFL player. He played for what?
The Rams and the San Diego Chargers and who else? They couldn't figure out, the teams couldn't figure out who wanted him so he kind of moved around a little bit. But the year was 1959. You will remember this story Leo, even though you weren't around then. The man's name was Vince Lombardi.
Vince Lombardi was a very famous football coach. He took over the Green Bay Packers in 1959. The Green Bay Packers were an awful team. I mean they were miserable and so in his first sit down with the entire team. He sat them all down in the locker room and he held up a football and you guys, some of you guys remember what he said.
He said gentlemen, this is a football. It was his way of saying, you guys are so pathetic and so bad that we are going to have to go back to the fundamentals of the game in order for you to understand how to play this game and how to be successful at this game. And when I thought about that illustration, I thought to myself, I wonder if our coach, if our coach wouldn't want to be saying to us as a church in America today, Christians, this is the cross. And wanting us to understand that if we don't get back to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, we're not losing our country anymore. It's almost to the point where it's hopelessly lost.
That doesn't mean we can't turn it around, but how many of you know it's not going to get turned around unless we as followers of Christ understand how we are to live our lives and how we are to impact our culture. And I really believe that if Jesus were here today, he'd be our coach and he'd be saying, you've got to get back to the fundamentals, guys. And what are the fundamentals? I believe the fundamentals of the Christian faith are not complicated. In fact, many of you know, we're starting our 242 home groups, or we're calling community groups, based on Acts 242, which is a pretty simple definition of what they came together in the early church to do in their homes.
And the simple way of doing this is the better way, we believe if we just look at the Bible and what the Bible is calling us to do, but at the center of what we are called to do as God's people, we were created to, and what's the word? Anybody know the word? We were created to what? Worship God. You all get that.
We're here to worship God. What does that mean? If you go back into the Old Testament in Exodus 3, 11, and 12, this is the place where Moses asked God the question, who am I? I mean, I've asked God that question a few times. Have you ever asked God that question?
Who am I? What do you see when you look at me? Moses was confused. Who am I? And this is what God says.
God's response to Moses is found in Exodus 3, 11, and 12. God said, I will be with you, Moses, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. What he was saying to Moses is, Moses, you are a bringer of my people to the mountain. That's who you are, Moses.
That's your role is to bring my people to the mountain. And what happened at the mountain? Two things happened at the mountain. The law in the form of the tablets were there, and the worship in the form of the tabernacle was there. And actually, when the Bible talks about worshiping in spirit and in truth, though they're unpacked right there in the Old Testament, they literally experienced God.
Now, that is in the Old Covenant. And the way they experienced God in the Old Covenant is they went into the tabernacle, and when they did all the things that they were supposed to do and performed all the rituals they were supposed to perform, God, literally God's presence shows up. And we'll see that here in just a moment as I unpack another powerful verse. And the reason why this is important is, without God's presence, how many of you know, we don't have much of a chance. We are desperate for God.
We need God to show up. And one of my favorite verses in all the Bible is found in 2 Chronicles 513. I think I've shared this verse with you guys here before, but it's been some time. Listen to what it says, the trumpeters and singers joined in unison as with one voice to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Now, let me pause here for just a second.
It says the trumpeters and singers. Who are the trumpeters? Well, the trumpeters, it's easy to think about musicians with all of their different accoutrements and all their different instruments that they play, that those are the people who are the more the professional, the trumpeters. But who are the singers, guys? Who are they?
They're all of us. We are all supposed to be engaged together. And we really get lost when we think about the worship is kind of relegated to the professionals that are up there on the platform. And we don't really understand that we're all here to do this together. We are to do it together, okay?
The trumpeters and singers joined in unison as with one voice. And by the way, if you're looking at the NIV today, the as with one voice is not in there. In fact, we looked it up. Alan looked it up because I gave him this verse and he said, Vince, that's not accurate. That's not what the NIV says.
You need a 1984 version of the NIV. If you go to 1984 and earlier, as with one voice is actually in there. I don't know why it was changed, but for some reason they left it out of the newer version. So as with one voice together, to give praise and thanks to the Lord, listen, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, they were accompanied by them. They raised their voices and praise to the Lord and sang, he is good, his love endures forever.
So you get the picture of what's happening here. It's a powerful picture. But the very next word in that flow of text is the word then. And I love it when then shows up in scripture, because then is a transitional word. It means as a result of what has just been described, here is what happened.
As a result of them praising their God, then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud. Now, come on, all you Bible scholars, what was the cloud? What was it? It was God. It was God.
It's a very presence of God showed up in that physical manifestation of a cloud. And again, in the old covenant, that's what God did. As a result of them doing these things, God showed up in the temple, in the tabernacle. Well, Jesus came. He died on that cross.
And when he gave himself up, what does it say about the temple curtain? It was rent. What does that mean? What actually happened? Did the temple leave planet earth?
Come on, you guys are just staring at me. Talk to me. Did it leave planet earth? No, where is it now? Point to it.
Okay, so if the temple is here, and you paraphrase what this verse is saying for today, guys, this is amazing truth. God still enters the temple. The difference is that now I don't have to go to the tabernacle or to the building. Wherever I am, wherever I worship my God, he still comes into the temple. Now, there's a lot of directions I can go from here that I'm tempted to, but I won't.
One of them has to do with obedience. Because in the Old Testament, you had to keep the temple a certain way in order for God to show up. Well, I'll tell you something, guys. There's rules in the New Testament in Galatians and a lot of other places about how we're supposed to keep this temple. And we can't, we can't not pay attention to this temple and just expect God to show up either.
So there's a relationship between obedience and power. And we've got to get that. That's another message for another time. But all of us are looking for the same thing where we want God's presence. We want to sense God's presence.
And I think I shared this with you guys once before that the Lord gave me a word one day as I was praying. I was really diligently seeking God's perspective. And today, I can think of no other day that I have ever lived in where God's perspective is as needed as it is right now. We really desperately need God's perspective. And God very clearly said these words to me.
This was probably about 10 years ago. He says, Vince, you will never have a greater understanding of my perspective until you first experience a greater awareness of my presence. And when he said that to me, I knew that had to be, that's not my mind would have never thought of that. It was like he was saying, you're not close enough to me. You don't understand what it takes to really sense who I am and sense my presence in your life.
And it really changed it changed my prayer life. But what's happening today in the body of Christ? This is happening. Romans 1 21 says this, for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile.
And their foolish hearts were darkened. Paul describes in Romans, I believe what is happening in much of our church today, especially in our culture. Here is the message translation of that verse. It says, what happened was this, people knew God or knew about God perfectly well. But when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialize themselves into silliness and confusion, so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.
And guys today, we have evolved what I believe is an intellectualized almost form of worship. Jack Hayford has a great quote. He says, the exercises of our enlightened minds may deduce God, but only our ignited hearts can delight him. And in turn, experience his desire to delight us. I love that.
Let me share just a couple more things before the worship team comes back. But I want to share three main barriers to worship, three main barriers that we find to be able to truly enter into worship. The first one is either a cavalier or a shallow understanding of who God is. This is where people, they know God, they know about God. They may have a pretty good prayer life, but kind of like God's cool, man.
He's just kind of like, he's down here with me. He's kind of my friend. Let me tell you something. God is so much bigger than your friend. You guys have seen me do the illustration.
I think I did it in here one time. In fact, I think I used you for this illustration with the cell phone. When I had you come up, remember I took a pluck the hair out of your head. Remember that? Yeah, you got a few left.
And I held up this cell phone and the technology that's in this phone is absolutely mind boggling. I mean, what goes into this phone and, but man made this phone. We designed it. We put it together. We made it.
The technology is unbelievable. This phone that I'm holding in my hand is 10 times more powerful than a computer that took up the entire platform here back in the 80s. That's how powerful this thing is. But man made it. And I plucked one of your hairs out, Lee, and I held it up next to the phone.
You couldn't even see the hair. And my point was this little piece of hair that you can't even see. Listen, guys, technologically, this little piece of hair blows this away. At the cellular level, we still don't know what's going on in this little tiny piece of hair. So, you know, if man representing me or any of you made this and it begs the question, if we're the ones that made this, where did this come from?
Where did I come from? Are you getting this? Are you getting how much bigger this God is than what we sometimes think? I mean, guys, we're talking about the universe here. That's how big God is.
Is he worth and worthy of praise and worship? You bet he is. Okay. So, the first one is a shallow or cavalier understanding of God. The second is a narrow theological perspective on worship.
Narrow theological perspective says, worship can only be like this. This is where it gets into form over substance. So, if you're not kicking off shoes and running laps around the auditorium, if you're not waving flags, doing backflips and really loud and out there, then you're not worshiping. Or, could be the other way. If you're not really quiet and reverent and very thoughtful and just really revering God in a quiet posture, that can't be worship.
Let me ask you a question. Again, which one of those are worship? Why? Because it has nothing to do with the form. It has everything to do with what's coming out of your heart.
Listen, guys, you guys have experienced this. I've seen, I remember years ago going up to Toronto Blessing up at the Vineyard Church up there when there was this big outreach going on from that church and there was all these manifestations. And I was there and there were people running around quacking like ducks and doing all kinds of weird stuff. I mean, it was weird. It was really weird.
And so, I came back from that experience and I remember Jack Hafer, who was my pastor at the time, and he says, what did you think? I said, Pastor Jack, I think I saw a whole lot of flesh and I think I saw a whole lot of the Holy Spirit. The problem is, I'm not so sure I know how to discern the difference. And he agreed. He says, it's difficult to discern the difference because it's a matter of what is coming out of the heart of the people that are doing that.
And I have seen people that are very, very quiet and really revere God in a still moment bowed before God who are just really worshiping God. And then I've also seen people that are doing that because they think by doing so, other people around them might think they're holy or that they're entering in and there's nothing going on in their heart at all. And I would venture to say probably every one of us in this room and in the sound of my voice right now have been guilty of both. I know I have. I've been guilty of raising my hands because everybody else did.
And I don't want to be singled out as the one who doesn't. And I've also been guilty of raising my hands out of complete exuberance and love for Jesus. I've done both. But here's the point. When I find myself distracted by those kinds of thoughts, it's very difficult for me to worship God.
And the idea is that we've got to have the right view of God. And when we enter into a time of worship, which we're going to do in a few moments, we have to put all that other stuff aside. Don't care about who's up here, who's doing what, what the physical manifestations may be, and just connect you and the Father. That's when you really will begin to experience Him. And then the last one is probably the biggest.
A shallow or cavalier understanding of God, a narrow theological perspective. And the third one is a reluctance towards surrender, a reluctance towards surrender. How many of you know that unless we are empty of ourselves, it's very hard to sense the presence of God. The Greek word for worship, by the way, is the word proscuneo. And it is where we get the English word prostrate.
It literally means to prostrate myself before God, to bow down before God, be an empty of everything that's invents in order to experience God in my life. That's literally what that word means. And I have found in my life, and especially in the last many, many years, that my proximity to God is in direct relation to my distance from Vince. The closer I am to me, the more the thoughts of me are entering in the further away I get from God, the more empty I am of me and my ideas and my attitudes, the easier it is. But it requires overcoming our pride.
It requires wondering, what will others think? Okay, Psalm 5117 says, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise. How many of you have ever heard the term intercessory worship? Many of you have. In fact, my friend Dick Eastman wrote a book on it not too long ago.
The title is Intercessory Worship, by the way. I think the term has been around for quite some time. But it's the idea that worship really is what precedes our intercession in our prayers. And when it does, and when it's in its proper place, the power of our prayers takes on a whole new dimension. And I really believe that this is true, guys.
And that's why I'm kind of bringing this brief message to us tonight, because we're going to go into a couple little prayer focus times as we conclude here in a little bit. But I want those prayer focuses to be born out of a time of worship in a sense that God's presence is in this place and in this place. And I believe as we do that, we're going to come to a whole new level of breakthrough in our prayer life. I really believe it. And so as we get into this, I want to, I just want to read a devotional that I read the other day.
In fact, I shared this with our staff team. And as I read this, the worship team can come and prepare to go into a time of worship. And again, as we're worshiping, guys, please feel free. If you feel like you want to come up front, if you feel you want to take a posture of kneeling, sometimes for me, I have to actually physically move somewhere where I'm not distracted, where I'm not seeing anybody else, or I'm not worried about all of those other things. But listen to this.
This is a devotional I read the other day, breakthrough starts in worship. Now, when they began to sing and to praise, this is 2 Chronicles 2022, when they began to sing and to praise, this is the people going out singing and praising before the Lord, the Lord, as a result of their singing and praising, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Amon, Moab, and Mount Seer, who had come against Judah, and they were defeated. Now, get this, guys. In this text, Judah is about to be overwhelmed by a confederation of three opposing armies. Judah had come against Judah, and they were defeated.
The three opposing armies, its armies are hopelessly outnumbered and face certain defeat, but God has a plan, worship. Worship puts God in his proper place as creator of the universe, redeemer of our life and provider of everything we need. Because we know whom we worship, our worship releases the Lord to perform his purpose within us. Worship is not blissful, ignorance, or vain, superstition in the face of present need. It is confirming God's desire to work in the lives of his people.
Spiritual power is released through praise. Here the enemies of Judah are confused and begin to slaughter each other as the people of God begin to sing and to worship. Isn't that what we need to have happen today? Jehoshaphat, Judah's king, never sends the army to fight, only the choir. Well, I love that.
That's all they needed, and that's all we need today, guys. The Lord promises that if we face each challenge with praise, he will confuse and scatter our enemies. Whatever today may bring, no matter how large the obstacle, the beginning point of breakthrough is praise and worship. As the team leaves out a little story about a student and his master, the student went to the master one day and he said, Master, how can I find God? And the master said, Son, come with me, and he takes the student out into a large river, and they wade out into the river until it's deep enough to where it comes up to about their chest, and he asked the student to go underwater and to hold his breath.
So the student obliged him, and he goes underwater, and he's holding his breath, and the master is watching him, and just about the time the student, he's trying to really do a good job, you know, and hold his breath for a long time. It's about the time the student starts to come up. The master puts his hand on his head and holds him under. He won't let him up, and the student is squirming. He doesn't know what's going on.
The master won't let him up. He's squirming, and he's struggling, and he's about to turn blue. And finally, at the point of almost feigning, the master releases his hand, and the student comes up and he goes, oh, why did you do that? And the master said, Son, when you're as desperate for God as you were for that breath of air, you'll find him.