Worship: A Commitment . . . Not a War, Part Two, Part 2

How were the our God is on inside for living from Chuck Swindoll. Worship is losing ourselves in wonder and love and praise. As Wesley once put so preoccupied with our God did nothing on this for James a significant place for our trials become reduce the changes that God brings only hold us to him closer today on inside from in our topic may stir up some strong emotion. See on Sunday mornings.

Congregations around the world make intentional choices about the kind of music that's in the flow of their worship service.

Opinions about what's appropriate and what's not. In fact, sometimes the instruments will style of music causes friction between friends as we waited into the volatile issue of worship. Chuck reminds us that getting worship right takes commitment in 1998 God led me vision that he gave to me with a body of people who didn't want to fight. Though some were veterans of it. Still licking their wounds after written. They long for a place where there could be meaningful worship still relevant. Interesting teaching important instruction all from the Bible but not yielding to the trend of our times, and you found your place at Stonebraker Community Church going to speak plainly here and I'm not going to concern myself with anyone else's opinion at this point it's been my observation as I study the war that much of it is fueled by man centered schemes and flesh driven promotion, the more I'm referring to is a war over worship is strange that the oxymoronic words would be placed together. Worship war never meant to be the aggressors to promote the war, have no sympathy for our patience with those who resisted some of you have been caught in the crossfire, and after getting weary of the fight in the place for you for years had once enjoyed worship you found yourself no longer able to understand that place of ministry, you determined you would find a church that wasn't divided by the war. The place that upholds worship is a commitment not as something to fight about to stand firmly in favor of the war kick historical tradition in the teeth and they label long-standing principles that can be found in the Scriptures as woefully irrelevant, out of date, and if you still embrace them.

You are known to them as a dinosaur. Everything seems to be determined in those churches as an appeal to the felt needs of casual observer, so that whatever you do.

Keep up the entertainment.

I had a friend tell me following one of our boarding worship services that in the church she once attended.

He finally decided he couldn't continue because for several Sundays. The pastor repelled from the ceiling down the wall of the church and showed up almost as a sideshow tech and I realized he said it's a game of one upmanship redemption is not of concern only the superficial in-depth instruction, solid biblical exposition from the Scriptures. There's no place for now.

There are little 6 to 8 minute sermon that's which in my opinion are for Christian nets. As a result, you grow about that deeply about 2 inches deep and about 12 miles wide. I remember talking with pastors who are enamored of that and by the way summer seeing the light. One of the better known of the churches that promoted this have rather recently that people those people have recently said we were wrong we were wrong we thought what we were doing in Woodinville people into worshipers and we realized it was not happening and we need to return to the teaching of the Scripture.

So praise God for that. I thought if it were possible for the great preachers and the gifted composers and the strong teachers of theology of the 18th and 19th and early part of the 20th century to return to the earth today and to visit most churches they would find themselves somewhere between personally embarrassed and absolutely sure they would say to themselves if they stayed through the whole service that was worship. Please do not get the false impression that we are the only ones left like Elijah felt when he was sitting under the juniper tree that's not true, but our ranks are thinner, our numbers are smaller you in a very unique house of worship, you know that don't you. You deliberately drive by some of you dozens of others to come to this little place where you have found freedom from the war in the presence of serious biblical exposition because you want your children taught you want your teenagers instructed encouraged and deepened. I said we were alone and I'm pleased to quote today from Stephen Lawson find for peace article in biblical figure Sacra which is the theological Journal of Dallas seminary. Stephen brought this lectureship at seminary back in 2001 magnificent four-part series on the importance of expository preaching. In his first lecture he says this is the church advances into the 21st century. The stress to produce booming ministries has never been greater influence by corporate mergers, towering skyscrapers and expanding economies.

Bigger is perceived as better, and nowhere is this Wall Street mentality more evident than in the church said to say pressure to produce bottom-line results has led many ministries to sacrifice the centrality of biblical preaching on the altar of man centered pragmatism, so quoting a new way of doing church is emerging in this radical paradigm shift exposition is being replaced with entertainment preaching with performances doctrine with drama and theology with the at the pulpit. Once the focal point of the church is now being overshadowed by a variety of church growth techniques. Everything from 20 worship styles to glitzy presentations to vaudeville like pageant trees in seeking to capture the upper hand in church growth. A new wave of pastors is reinventing the church and repackaging the gospel into a product to be sold to consumers. Whatever reportedly works in one church is being franchised out to various markets abroad. Listen to these terms, you think I'm describing a growing number of Starbucks coffee shops franchising around the country as when gold was discovered in the foothills of California so ministers are beating a path to the doorsteps of exploding churches and super hyper conferences were the latest strike has been reported.

Unfortunately, the newly panned gold often turns out to be fools gold. Not all the glitters is actually gold. Admittedly in here is very fair. Pastors can learn from growing churches and successful ministries.

Yet God's work must be done. God's way. If it is to know God's blessing.

He provides the power and he alone receives the glory only as his divinely prescribed plan for ministry is followed when man centered schemes are followed, often imitating the worlds schemes the flesh provides the energy and man receives the glory. In a strange twist, the preaching of the cross is now foolishness not only to the world but also to the contemporary church my desire in addressing the subject of worship certainly included messages like this in my plan.

I think it's time that we announce openly and without reluctance that some of our community church is a church for our times, but it is not a church caught up in the trends nor by the grace of God.

Will we ever be.

It is a church. I hope that will be marked by balance always been our goal from the start. I even attempt to balance Old Testament and New Testament in my instruction. I hope to balance doctrine with practical application in my messages, but it will always be from the Bible and it will never be to show off, or to call attention to me or for any musician to call attention to herself or himself. We do not play and sing a pre-for any man's glory. It is all for the glory of our God. It's a part of our philosophy of worship and worship has to do with the magnification of our great God, which means I'm not important in the process not significant in the act. I bow before him who is supreme and I acknowledge in the bowing that I am not, nor is my way, important, nor are my words more valuable than anyone else's words, my words take on significance only when they are filtered through the inerrant text of the holy Scripture in the day. This messenger stops preaching from this book, I urge you to run in the other direction.

Your time is far more valuable than that any time when our music calls attention to the musician we missed it anytime when this church builds a building that in some ways tries to impress a community we missed the mark with the church does what it ought to be doing it become such a curious thing. Those without Christ or drawn by nothing else than just then curiosity. How could this many people want to listen to that guy that long in a place looks like that I gotta find out what's going on and when he comes or when she comes there is the discovery.

It is something beyond anything, it is the presence and the power of the living God at work.

That's what it is a mile where this is on how the our God is worship is a declaration of his supreme Majesty worship is losing ourselves in wonder and love and praise. As Wesley once put it is been so preoccupied with our God that nothing on this earth. James a significant place in our thinking, our trials become reduce the discoveries of life become exciting and the changes that God brings without explaining his reasons only hold us to him closer and we discover there is a dimension of life that is supernatural and unseen, and the invisibility of it adds to the invincibility of and we sit in his magnificent presence from one week to the next and from one class to the next thanking him for his precious word that lives and abides forever and will never be irrelevant and doesn't need a preacher to make it relevant. The job of the preacher is to show you how relevant it is. I simply declare what's there now watch it all go on for two hours. If you keep that boy that will quiet them down right quick turn to Matthew chapter 15 I want you to see an example of vein worship. Matthew 15: what a magnificent subject. This is to get into what you see Jesus as he is on the street if you will, facing his opposers his opponents there called Pharisees and scribes verse one and they come to him from Jerusalem, saying, by the way, before we read what they said understand. They're all hot and bothered because the disciples weren't following the guidebook of the up of the Pharisees and the scribes. It is of the book of God. That's called the Torah in the tour.

There are 10 Commandments but for the Pharisees and scribes. There were over 650 more that they added which means such things as this is the way you wash your hands before you eat your meal and there was a tedious lengthy process you go through as you fulfill the traditions of men and if you don't, you're wrong.

They shot you ultimately they judge you in the final part is they drive you out because you need to do what they are telling you to do legalism that is worse. So here's an example. Jesus is with this man they been eaten from the field. They didn't wash their hands so the Pharisees show up and they're complaining what your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders notice they didn't say the holy Scriptures there transgressing the tradition of the elders, for they don't wash their hands when they eat bread and he answered and said to them, why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition you get it. He trumps their criticism by quit by mentioning the sacred text.

They may be ignoring the tradition of your list, but here is the word of God that they're not ignoring it. Why do you ignore it while upholding your tradition will he goes on to give them an example, God said, and he describes it.

Verse five but you say so. They come in with their interpretation and their addition to the text, and they go further than God ever allowed them to go over 70 says it like it is you hypocrites pause for a moment, let you think about what is the last time you ever said that to anybody. Probably never. I can't remember the last time I reset. First of all, we don't feel qualified, but Jesus is because he's perfect.

He knew motive he had heard enough to know that they were hypocrites. They sounded one way but they acted another. Their hearts are filled with all kinds of judgmental-ism is, why do you act like you're so righteous when in fact you're a bunch of hypocrites.

In fact, rightly did Isaiah prophesied he quotes to them extemporaneously from the scrolls of Isaiah.

These people honor me with their lips, that's not worship, but their heart is far away from me that's not worship God doesn't want her lips. He wants all of us hearts lips every benefits.

But in vain they worship the words in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrine, the precepts of men. He called his disciples to him or the multitudes to him and he said to them, hear and understand not what enters into the mouth defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth that defiles the man and I love verse 12 one of my favorites. The disciples said to him, you know, the Pharisees were offended when they heard the same you think we tell you every time you speak the truth. Someone will be offended, especially Pharisees.

Certainly those who are running from the truth. Those who do not acknowledge that God's word is the truth. You will be offended will be offended by the Frank Bolden nature of the proclamation that comes with exposition. The Scripture cuts through cuts into beyond the soul and spirit beyond the joints and the marrow, and it is a critic because it is a critic of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. That's why when you hear Bible exposition you feel exposed.

The admin say to me after the service. My wife called you didn't see Allison.

I don't even know who your wife is going on. I don't don't don't jerk me around. She called this week that she doesn't know. I haven't talked. She didn't tell you about some of the noises. I thought when you were preaching you wanted me to hear it because you talking as if I don't even know your name but you know what's happened word of God is penetrating is touching.

It is cutting that's what you have to have the delivery of the word of God that's white essential for life because the invisible invincible Almighty sovereign God of heaven is revealing himself and his truth to people like us living in this time we don't get any help from our culture.

We don't get any help from our times you get very little help from any school you attend, you will get little help from many churches. So the word of God becomes the source of truth for so he says to them.

Of course there of course I'm telling them about the word of God and I'm exposing the traditions of men turn from here to Romans 11 had a fellow say to me, following the first morning service. I thought we were through with Roman. My answer was you're never through with Romans what the dictionary is of the English language.

The letter to the Romans is the you will keep coming back to Romans and keep coming back to Rome's let me tell you where we are because it's been a few weeks and you probably forgot way back to the beginning of Romans he reveals us as sinners lost undone without hope.

There's no way were to reach God on our own. No one seeks God.

No one no one on his own has any interest in spiritual things. That is certainly not the biblical God of heaven and so God must intervene and the dead in Christ, and he brought his grace. He reached in and loved us when we were very lovely and we came to know Christ as chapter 5 we had the struggles of chapter 6, seven and eight and then finally in 1911.

Paul has been building this doctrinal base when adjusted Chapter 11 verse 33. He speaks in what is called a provocative oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. There's nothing among mankind that would ever deserve such a statement, but with the living God will Of the riches Of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God, look at the next two words as he uses and how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways might go to great unsearchable unfathomable know how I can. That means I don't have the answers to what I spent so much of my time wasting it on finding answers when him to trust him. So God's plan was to do would unfathomable unsearchable work in our lives. All of the riches of such that put God in a completely different category. That's who we worship. That's why we worship without a no other.

This is what it only Chuck Swindoll is showing us what the Bible says about worship in its truest form.

It's a topic he's been addressing for several programs now this is inside for living and to learn more about this ministry. Visit us online@insideworld.org.

While Chuck titled this portion of our study worship, a commitment not a war part two. If you're prepared to learn more about this topic is really important to meet the man who shaped our understanding of worship.

I'm referring of course to Paul the apostle along those lines will be pleased to learn that Chuck is written the book about Paul's life in this fascinating biography. You'll discover how God used Paul one time Christian hater to write major portions of the New Testament, such as Romans, and the two letters to Timothy Chuck's biography of Paul is titled Paul a man of grace and grit his conversion to Christianity was nothing short of miraculous. As he moved from legalism to a grace filled life to purchase a copy go to insight.org/offer or call us if you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 11 hear her say that inside for living relies on your personal support to make these daily programs not only on your local radio station. But on a variety of channels that make learning more about the Bible easily accessed by people every it's our goal. Our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ in all 195 countries of the world. If it's been a while since you've responded. You've never stepped forward with the contribution we invite you to do that today to give a donation today.

Just give us a call if you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or did your donation online when you visit insight.org/by the way, we hope you're taking advantage of Chuck Swindoll's daily devotional. It sent to your inbox each morning to help you start your day with God.

The email devotional is to sign up, go to insight.org/devotion honestly I had no idea that a cruise to Alaska could be so much fun without a doubt stunning views, took my breath away God's artistic genius is on full display in the last impact on guaranteed you come home refreshed and filled with all for his shift to create one point I simply think he thanked often playing in the way.

It was amazing to have plenty of time for pictures on shore lingering conversations around mealtime and strolling through the idyllic ports of call real part of some of the best part of our day laughing, singing and celebrating our God plan to come with the dates are July 1 through July 8, 2023. To learn more, call 1880-447-0441 888-447-0444 or visit insight.org/events Alaska is painful and made possible by only those who choose to attend Bill Meyer, Chuck Swindoll concludes his in-depth study about overcoming the worship wars tomorrow right here on insight for living. The preceding message, worship, commitment, not a war part two was copyrighted in 2008 2010 and 2022 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2022 by Charles R. Swindoll.

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