Category: Worship

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Worship

Are you trying to “get the feeling again” during worship?

man standing with uplifted hands during a sunset - symbolizing our search for a feeling during worship

Sometimes (maybe even too often) when we come to worship, we have come looking for an emotional experience… some aspect of having a specific feeling. Is that what worship is supposed to do – to give us an emotional high? Are you coming to worship in an attempt to have your heart-strings pulled?

Alistair Begg discusses his thoughts about those who say to him something along the lines of: “I’m just trying to get the feeling again.”

…I meet with people every week who think this is the answer to their spiritual impoverishment – if only they could get the feeling again.

…If you come to church on a Sunday for the feeling, I guarantee you that 9 Sundays out of 10, you’re going to go away disappointed. We have to acknowledge that we come to worship on the Lord’s Day in all kinds of conditions of heart & life.

…If you came hoping for your favorite instruments to get the feeling back again, then you might be disappointed; If you came hoping to sing your five favorite songs, you might be disappointed; If you came for anything other than truth to transform, then you may wait for a long time. And only the truth transforms and stays, because the feeling goes as the music dies.

When you attend worship with your church family, is it to experience some elusive emotion or feeling again, or is it to meet with God’s people as a family and hear the truth that has the power to transform your life? As we grow in our maturity, we should realize that our primary concern in worship should not be to have our emotions stirred, but for us to better know the truth of God’s Word. And what we will find is that if we better know God’s Word and embrace the truths there, then worship will automatically affect our emotions because we will be in awe at the grace of Jesus to rescue sinners like us. God’s truth is sufficient to impact us powerfully and to transform our lives.  

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Worship

Awe Problems Are All Around Us

“You don’t have to look very far to see awe problems everywhere around you.”

photo of person standing on mountain looking into a lush valley symbolizing the fact that our awe problem can cause us to find delight in the wrong things

My last two posts were connected to Paul David Tripp’s book, Awe. (You can read them by following these links: Post 1 and Post 2.) Today, I want to share what he says about Awe Problems – how looking for awe in the wrong places will lead us into sin:

In the heart of a sinner, awe of God is very quickly replaced by awe of self. This is the great war of wars. You don’t have to look very far to see awe problems everywhere around you.

Adultery is an awe problem. To the degree that you forget God’s glory as the Creator of your body and his place as owner of every aspect of your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual personhood, to that degree it is easier to use the members of your body to get whatever pleasure your heart craves.

Debt is an awe problem. When your mind is blown away by the thought that God provides everything you have, that every good gift really does come from him, you are predisposed to be a good steward of the things he has provided.

Obsession with the collection of possessions is the result of an awe amnesia that makes you ask of things what you will only ever get from the God of glory, who alone can satisfy your searching heart.

Living for power and control is an awe problem. When you live with the rest and peace that come from keeping the power, authority, and sovereignty of God before your eyes, you don’t need to work yourself into control over the people and situations in your life.

Gluttony and obesity are awe problems. When you forget the glory of the satisfying grace of the Redeemer, you are susceptible to letting things like food and drink become your temporary replacement messiahs.

Fear of man is an awe problem. When I forget that God’s glory defines not only him but who I have become as his child, I look to people to give me meaning, purpose, and identity.

The awe war is everywhere. So I know that in ministry I will be preaching, teaching, and encouraging people who are awe forgetful, awe discouraged, awe empty, awe deceived, awe seduced, awe kidnapped, and awe weary. My job is to give them eyes to see the awesome glory of God—his glorious grace, wisdom, power, faithfulness, sovereignty, patience, kindness, mercy, and love.

I hope that today, your eyes will be open to see how awesome God is, so that you can replace your own awe problems by looking at the glory, grace, and might of our wonderful Savior!

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Worship

Awe Shapes the Direction of Your Life

Where you look for awe will shape the direction of your life.

My last post indicated that the awesome things of this earth are signposts pointing to our awesome Creator.
grand teton mountain range at sunset to symbolize awe-inspiring things that provide direction as to what we care about
Today I want to share a bit more from Paul David Tripp’s book, Awe.

It just makes sense that your source of awe will control you, your decisions, and the course your story takes. For example, if you live in awe of material things, you will spend lots of money acquiring a pile of material stuff. To afford your ever-increasing pile, you will have to work a lot. You will also tend to attach your identity and inner sense of peace to material possessions, spending way too much time collecting and maintaining them. If material things are your awe source, you will neglect other things of value and won’t ever be fully satisfied, because these material things just don’t have the capacity to satisfy your awe-longing heart. Yes, your house will be big, your car will be luxurious, and you will be surrounded with beautiful things, but your contentment in areas that really count will be small.

Awe stimulates the greatest joys and deepest sorrows in us all.
…When you say, “If only I had _______,” how do you fill in the blank?

What are you willing to make sacrifices for, and what in your life just doesn’t seem worth the effort? Look at your highest joys and deepest sorrows, and you will find where you reach for awe. Take anger, for example. Think of how little of your anger in the last couple months had anything at all to do with the kingdom of God. You’re not generally angry because things are in the way of God and his kingdom purposes. You’re angry because something or someone has gotten in the way of something you crave, something you think will inspire contentment, satisfaction, or happiness in you. Your heart is desperate to be inspired, and you get mad when your pursuits are blocked. Where you look for awe will fundamentally control the thoughts and emotions of your heart in ways you normally don’t even realize.

Therefore, we need to stop looking for awe in the created things, and allow the wonder of the created things to lead us to look for awe in Him.

What are some things that create a sense of awe in you that point you toward the Creator?

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Worship

Developing Your Heart Involves Increasing Your Awe

To follow up on my previous post about developing your heart, I want to share with you a few excerpts from Paul David Tripp’s book, Awe. I find that I connected with his introductory remarks about himself, as it well-described both where I am and where I need to be:

I wrote this book for me because, at this point in my life, I am more aware than ever that I have a fickle and wandering heart. I wish I could say that every moment I enjoy some created thing initiates in me a deeper worship of the Creator, but it doesn’t….

I wrote this book for me because I am aware that I need to spend more time gazing upon the beauty of the Lord. I need to put my heart in a place where it can once again be in awe of the grandeur of God that reaches far beyond the bounds of the most expressive words in the human vocabulary. I need awe of him to recapture, refocus, and redirect my heart again and again. And I need to remember that the war for the awe of my heart still wages inside me.

I wrote this book for me because I came to see that I was wired for awe. …But I wasn’t just wired for awe. I was wired for awe of God. No other awe satisfies the soul. No other awe can give my heart the peace, rest, and security that it seeks.

…The war that rages in my heart rages in yours as well. Things in the creation not only capture me, they capture you too. Like me, you need to spend more time gazing upon the awesome beauty of your Lord so that your heart will remember and, in remembering, be rescued.

God intentionally loaded the world with amazing things to leave you astounded. The carefully air-conditioned termite mound in Africa, the tart crunchiness of an apple, the explosion of thunder, the beauty of an orchid, the interdependent systems of the human body, the inexhaustible pounding of the ocean waves, and thousands of other created sights, sounds, touches, and tastes—God designed all to be awesome. And he intended you to be daily amazed.
sunset over lake to point out that awe of creation should point to the Creator
But remember – Every created awe is meant to point you to the Creator.

…No awesome thing in creation was meant to give you what only the Creator is able to give. Every awesome thing in creation is designed to point you to the One who alone is worthy of capturing and controlling the awe of your searching and hungry heart.

As it is true of a street sign, so it is true of every jaw-dropping, knee-weakening, silence-producing, wonder-inspiring thing in the universe. The sign is not the thing you are looking for. No, the sign points you to what you are looking for. So you can’t stop at the sign, for it will never deliver what the thing it is pointing to will deliver.

Created awe has a purpose; it is meant to point you to the place where the awe of your heart should rest. If awesome things in creation become your god, the God who created those things will not own your awe.

Horizontal awe is meant to do one thing: stimulate vertical awe.

May you “deepen your awe of your Redeemer, and may your heart be rescued, satisfied, and glad.”

May this become true of me – that I deepen my awe of my Redeemer!

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Worship

The Ignorance of God

“The Ignorance of God”
  by brian rushing

Sorry about the lack of any posts the last two-and-a-half weeks. I took a short break off from posting due to having a bit too much on my plate! You’ve been there, I’m sure. It is similar to being at grandma’s house when you are already full, but grandma insists that you need another portion of mashed potatoes, and so she serves you a few extra scoops against all your protests. You look at that fluffy mountain in front of you and wonder how you will be able to swallow another bite, much less finish it all! But you keep eating one bite at a time, until it is all gone. So I kept eating one bite at a time, and now am back on track with what seem to be regular portions on my plate. (though sometimes looks can be deceiving!) That being said, here we go again….

What do you know about God?
When you look up in the sky and see the vastness of this creation, do you feel that maybe you do not know enough?
a starry sky symbolizing our search in knowing God and our ignorance of Him and His ways
J. I. Packer wrote a book called Knowing God, and his reason for writing it was that he believed that the “ignorance of God — ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with Him — lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.”

God has given us His Word so that we can know Him. But how well do we know God? Maybe the question would be even stronger if each of us turned it upon ourselves: “How well do I know God?” Am I actually ignorant of Him and His ways? Ignorant might be too strong of a word, but certainly it makes me evaluate what I know about God.

And if I do know some things about God, “What do I intend to do with my knowledge about God, once I have it?”

Will I take that knowledge and become proud and conceited about how much I know? We need to know things about God, but if we are gaining that knowledge for the wrong purpose, it can make us less spiritually healthy than we were before.

Here’s an example – In high school I was fairly physically fit (as were many of us). But then something happened after high school… my fitness seemed to leave me! (as seemed to happen to many of us!) Of course, I had been fit, so I knew how to lose weight and get physically healthy again. I had read plenty about having the right kind of diet and the types and amounts of exercises I needed to do. But I didn’t eat right and I didn’t exercise. I could get into a intellectual discussion with you about those things, because I had the right knowledge. I just didn’t apply the knowledge in a way that changed my life in any measurable way.

So, back to the spiritual area of life – will I use my knowledge about God in the same way as I used my knowledge about fitness? Will I just have it up in my head and use it in discussions that puff up my pride so I feel good about what I know, or will I use it to change my life in a measurable way?

       One can know a great deal about godliness without much knowledge of God. It depends on the sermons one hears, the books one reads, and the company one keeps. …there is no shortage of books or sermons on how to pray, how to witness, how to read our Bibles, how to tithe our money, how to be a young Christian, how to be an old Christian, how to be a happy Christian, how to lead people to Christ… and generally how to go through all the various motions associated with being a Christian believer.

…It certainly makes it possible to learn a great deal secondhand about the practice of Christianity. …One can have all this [knowledge] and hardly know God at all.

We come back, then, to where we started. The question is not whether we are good at theology…. The question is, can we say, simply, honestly, that we have known God, and that because we have known God the unpleasantness we have had, or the pleasantness we have not had, through being Christians does not matter to us?

If we really knew God, this is what we would be saying, and if we are not saying it, that is a sign that we need to face ourselves more sharply with the difference between knowing God and merely knowing about Him.

I want to know God intimately, deeply, and in a way that transforms my life. Don’t you?

So how can we get there? Stay tuned in the upcoming days for more thoughts on this with some assistance from Dr. Packer.

         (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)