A Community of Unceasing Worship

  • Jake Chambers
  • Dec 6, 2009
  • Series: SDSU

A Community of Unceasing Worship

Jake Chambers

December 6, 2009

 

Last week we ended a great series in which we studied the first four chapters of the book of Revelation. Our studies ended with Revelation 4 in which we see Jesus on the throne being worshipped for all eternity. With us knowing that all will end with Jesus being worshipped, I thought it would be beneficial for us to take some time to actually study worship. What is worship? How do we worship? Why are there so many weeks without worship on Sundays? How does Kaleo SDSU view worship? What is the importance of worship? Do I worship? Who is worship for? Why worship? There are lots of questions, philosophies, ideologies, and opinions surrounding worship, and my hope is that we take the next month to examine how God views worship through his holy scripture and what that means for Kaleo SDSU as his church.

 

I hope to take the next month to show you through scripture that all of life is worship, that all are worshippers, and that all worship is to be directed toward God or it is sin. We will examine what it means to worship God with all of our time, treasure, and talents.

 

Deuteronomy 5:7 says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” This is the first of the Ten Commandments. The God of the bible is to be worshipped first and foremost above all else and nothing should ever come before him ever. We worship what we put highest. We are all worshippers. We all place something in the imminent place of importance. Something in our lives dictates all of our decisions. Something in our lives holds the trump card and is of utmost importance. Do I worship? Do we worship? Am I a worshipper? The answer is a resounding yes! Everyone worships something or someone all the time. Everything has something as the highest priority, the decision maker, and the object of greatest influence. The question is what is it in your life that holds this spot?

 

I will give you a made up story based on tons of real life discussions. The other day I was talking with someone about God’s views on dating and sex, his call for absolute purity before marriage, and some biblical principles for crushing idols that lead to not being a one-woman man or a one-man woman. This person responded that they thought it was cool that this is what the Bible says and that I encourage them to do this, but it is just not how things are done in their workplace. They let me know that if they did not flirt often, casually date unbelievers, and blur the line on sexual purity they would not be accepted at work. Really?

 

This may seem like an extreme conversation but I have ones like this several times a week with different people in different circumstances. Sometimes it is about sex, work, money, moving, or whatever, but at the end of many conversations the person will decide that what God demands is not as crucial as what their real god demands. Simply put, they have other gods before God. God is not in the primary place of authority. In this case what this person worshipped was acceptance at work. Co-workers thoughts held the highest priority and even if biblically convinced that God would call them to something different they still blatantly choose to worship something else instead. We need to see that these choices to choose sin over God are worship issues. We only break the other nine commandments after we first break the first one.

 

The Trinitarian God of the Bible is the God that is to hold the utmost position at Kaleo SDSU. The mission of Kaleo SDSU is God; the vision of Kaleo SDSU is God! All that we do, strive to do, and hope to do is to come out of an overflow of worship of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The plan is to be a people who worship God above all else, that we would place him in the preeminent position and therefore live lives so radically committed to him that it becomes attractive, and that we would form a people who would remind each other that God is preeminent and we would do this over and over and replicate communities that see Christ as utmost.

 

At Kaleo SDSU we talk about a mission and vision centered on gospel, community and mission. I want to show that at the center of all of these is God and that all of them are a form of worship.

 

The gospel allows us to pursue a life of unceasing worship of God. I will tell you right now that as we examine worship over the next month and how it is central to every facet of our lives, we will uncover a multitude of areas in which we are not worshipping God. Besides Jesus Christ, there never has been and never will be anyone who perfectly lives a life of unceasing worship of God. There are only men and women who are pursuing a life of unceasing worship of Jesus Christ. The gospel is central in forgiving us of our misplaced worship, restoring us back to worship and transforming us into a people who desire to rightly worship God above all else. Worship is always a heart issue and the gospel is what renews hearts by the power of Christ’s blood.

 

These hearts that now long to have no other gods before them besides the God of the bible become a community who desires to worship through all of life together. God does not come and rescue individuals, but rescues a people. God desires a people to glorify him above all else. The Ten Commandments were written to his chosen people. He wants a people, a community, to have no other gods before them!

 

Deuteronomy 9:16-21: God built us for community and this community is to fight for each other and fight the other gods that creep in. Moses fights for his community when so many others are lazy and allow other gods to crawl right back to the center of worship. We need community to point us back to the gospel and to hate our misplaced worship when we adore it. The reason we zealously fight to burn away other gods is because we know that our Lord Jesus Christ alone is worthy of all of our worship.

 

He desires community to worship him unceasingly! Communities transformed by the gospel will be worshipping communities and this LIFE of worship will be mission. At Kaleo SDSU we are about mission. We want to see College Area, SDSU, San Diego, and the world transformed by the gospel. Our vision is not that the church will be built by a good marketing scheme, a lighting show, flyers, or a good website. We believe mission will go when the gospel forms a community that is pursuing a life of unceasing worship of Jesus Christ. A community is incapable of unceasing worship of God above all else without being on mission.

 

Psalm 96:1-3: When God is calling to be worshipped and be glorified, he is calling for missions. Sing his praises, for his glory, proclaim his name, his deeds and his salvation day after day and do it among all nations and all people. See how mission centered the continuous worship of God is. God knows that the worship of him will be a missionary life.

If God is in the preeminent position in your life, if he is the center of all your decisions, dreams, hopes and lifestyle, then your life will be a missionary life lived with God’s missionary people. If you are not living a missionary life with God’s missionary people, then you are not worshipping God. If you are not proclaiming him to all nations and all peoples, then you are not worshipping him.

 

Deuteronomy 5:6, 5:15: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Before God demands the place of preeminence, he reminds his people of who he is and why he is worthy of our continuous worship! He has brought us out of the house of slavery. Sin is enslaving. We are enslaved to that which we worship. But when that is something or someone other than Christ, then we are slaves to something that does not satisfy, rescue or forgive. All of us would still be slaves to false gods with no hope of freedom if it were not for Christ’s death on the cross. We all still have areas of our hearts where we are still worshipping something other than Christ. Maybe it is money, knowledge, power, sex or sports. Think of things in the past that Christ has freed you from, and remember that he alone freed you and is worthy of worship. Jesus Christ by his blood, death, and resurrection has freed us from the house of slavery. He has freed us from the hand of pharaoh, which is foreshadowing the hand of Satan. Christ frees us and therefore is the God worthy of all of our worship. Kaleo SDSU, I pray our hearts would be softened, our ears would be opened, and we would respond to this great God who loves us, frees us, and rescues us, and we would respond by pursuing him in a life of unceasing worship! Amen.

 

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