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04.13.08

Fourth Sunday of Easter

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION

PSALM 116; LUKE 10:25-37

• The Motivation for Worship
• Why We Do It and What We Gain
• “Why do you come to worship and what do you want to get out of worship?”(solicit responses from the congregation)
• These were questions I asked my last congregation, and their responses were very similar
• To the first question, “Why do I come to worship?” some of their responses were
• To get renewal for the week to come, to renew faithful energy, to sing and renew familiar friendships
• To honor God and pay respect to God…to touch the spirit in my soul…to sing music “old” or “new” that lifts and transcends this earth
• I want to feel inspired to do better.  I want to feel the presence of God
• Fellowship, peace of mind
• Because I am seeking God’s guidance in my life, want to learn to be more like Jesus, to meet with fellow Christians
• To the second question, “What do I want to get out of worship?” they responded this way
• I want to feel calm and comforted by attending worship.  Also, the Bible readings are informative and the sermon usually gives good pointers in living better according to God’s word
• To be closer to God, share with others, learn about God and what he wants me to do
• More understanding of the way of Christ, a deeper feeling of being with Christ, joy of being a Christian
• A feeling of ease and confidence to go into another week, learn different views of Bible passages
• A feeling of God’s Spirit within, and a desire to spread his word.  To feel his love
• I want to give and honor God—I don’t do that enough—too often the service (in my own mind) is too much about me…It is about God
• These responses reflect an important element in our public acts of worship
• We gather together as a community to be equipped for the living of our lives and to equip others in the living of their lives
• This mutual sharing of faith and experience works to “build up the body of Christ,” and prepares us to go back into the world, as Christ has commanded, to worship God with our living and carry out the work that Jesus gave us to do
• Worship is what we offer to God, and it is not limited to the hour we set aside on Sunday morning
• Worship is the way we live our lives day after day after day
• It’s how we use our time, how we spend our money, and what we do with the talents we have been given
• It’s the quality of love that we show to others, how generous we are with the things we have, and our selfless service for the sake of others
• Worship is truly to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.”
• But worship is not only a warm, cozy feeling of closeness to God that we get when we know that God loves us
• Worship is translating that feeling into action and actually loving our neighbors as we love ourselves

• The Journey of our Lives
• Last week, we reflected on the journey of our lives and how we encounter Jesus along the road
• That journey is leading us somewhere, and where it is leading is into a deeper relationship with God, and ultimately to heaven
• Yet, God is not confined to heaven alone or within the walls of the church—God is present and active in the world
• So, worship is not just what we do in church; it’s what we do with our lives as we make our journey through this world in preparation for the life to come
• What we need from the church as we travel on this journey are the tools and the training so that we can offer the whole of our lives to God as worship
• But if all that we are concerned about is what we can get out of worship, we are worshipping for the wrong reasons
• If our focus is on our personal benefit and gain, then we are not worshipping God, we are worshipping ourselves
• Although the questions we reflected on this morning are important questions, there is one question that is more important still—“What am I willing to give to God in worship?”
• Worship As Giving, Not Taking
• Taking the Cup of Salvation
• This is the question that the Psalmist raises in the 116th Psalm
• “How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me?” to which he answers, “I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”
• But before we flesh out the meaning of his answer, we first need to look at what motivated him to ask this question
• As we look at the opening verses of this Psalm, it’s obvious that this was a person in desperation
• He obviously had experienced some great trauma in his life
• Perhaps it was his own physical or mental illness, or the illness and death of a loved one in his life, or some other trauma that shook him to the core
• Whatever the cause, his life was falling apart, and he likens his distress to being entangled in the cords of death
• Whatever it was, it was a circumstance that he was powerless to control and powerless to overcome
• In the depths of his despair, he cried out to God
• At least he had faith enough to pray and to believe that God would answer, and he believed that God had the power to break him free from the cords of death that entangled him
• And that is exactly what God did!
• God delivered his soul from death, his eyes from tears and his feet from stumbling
• By the mercy of God, he was saved and redeemed and given a new chance at life
• It was this experience of mercy that moved him to worship
• Recognizing the grace and love of God, his lips proclaimed, “What shall I give to the Lord for all his benefits to me?”
• The answer with which he responds to his own question is very revealing
• “I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”
• In this response, the first thing that the Psalmist admits is that the salvation he experienced was not because of anything he had done for himself, for he was powerless over his own situation
• The salvation he received was purely by the grace of God, and all he had to do was reach out and accept it
• He also admits that acceptance of God’s grace comes with responsibility, for the cup of salvation is also the cup of sacrifice
• What he could give to God, what he must give in response to God’s grace, was the whole of his life totally committed to God
• To accept God’s gift of salvation requires that we sacrifice ourselves and offer the whole of our being to God as an act of worship
• The cup of salvation is the cup of sacrifice
• This is what Jesus said to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, when they came to him requesting positions of greatness in the kingdom of God
• Jesus asked them, “Can you drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”
• The cup and the baptism of which Jesus spoke is sacrifice, and Jesus illustrated this in his words and actions at the Last Supper
• “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
• To “call on the name of the Lord” also indicates the Psalmist’s commitment to live his life in a new relationship to God
• Names had much greater significance then than they do today
• A name was a reflection of the character of that person, and to call on the name of another was to completely identify oneself with that person
• By calling on the name of the Lord, the Psalmist declares his resolve to take the attributes of God into his own life and to be as much like God as is humanly possible
• Sacrifice to God and identity with God is what true worship is all about
• Giving Ourselves Completely to God
• Jesus draws this point home further with the lawyer who asked the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
• The answer the lawyer gave in response to Jesus’ question was correct, to a degree
• Worship is about loving God with all our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves
• But too often, we are content simply to allow love to be a feeling that makes us  warm and comfortable, safe and secure
• But Jesus never defined love for God or love for neighbor as a feeling
• For Jesus, love, in any form, is action
• Love must be expressed in deeds of kindness and grace
• To love God with all of our being means that we must use all of our being to demonstrate the love of God
• To love our neighbors as we love ourselves is to do for them the same things that will make their life better that we would do to make our life better
• Love expressed in action is the ultimate form of worship
• We see the ultimate expression of worship in the actions of the Samaritan
• The priest passed by because he was more concerned about tradition and orthodoxy
• The temple and its liturgy meant more to him than the suffering of a fellow human being
• The Levite passed by because he was selfish
• He was impressed with his own importance and social standing and was unwilling to take the risk to help someone else
• Often, these are the attitudes that we cling to as well
• Worship for us in nothing more than liturgy and tradition
• As long as we have sung familiar hymns, recited familiar prayers and creeds, and heard the word of God publicly read and proclaimed, we have worshipped
• As long as we sit in the same place in the same pew and come away feeling good about ourselves, we are satisfied
• But those kind of things do not constitute acceptable worship
• Acceptable worship is less about what we receive from God and more about what we give to God
• Only the Samaritan offered worship that was acceptable to God because he stopped and invested his being in actions of love for this one who was suffering
• In the end, we will be judged not by the creed we profess but by the life that we live
• Making a Commitment
• So, the question of the day is, “What am I willing to give to God in worship?”
• That’s the right question we all must answer
• How much of a commitment are we willing to make?
• Far too may of us are only willing to give Jesus a portion of our life
• That’s sad because Jesus willingly gave all of his life for us
• Yet, we’re comfortable only giving him an hour for worship on some Sundays, and a minute or two of prayer when we really need a favor from him, and a few dollars every now and then to keep the doors of the church open
• That’s all we’re wiling to give, and the rest of our life is ours to do with as we please
• We’re convinced that what we have we’ve earned by ourselves rather than recognizing that what we have and who we are, are all gifts of God’s grace
• What are you willing to give to God in worship?
• The place to begin to answer that is by assessing what you’re giving now
• How does your devotion to God and your service to Jesus Christ measure up to all that God has done for you?
• Are you offering God the first-fruits of your time and energy, your talents and treasures, or does God only get what’s left over after you’ve used most of it up?
• Are you giving God the best of what you have, or does God get only the scraps after everything else is gone?
• Think about all that God has done for you and all the gifts God has given you
• What more can you do to demonstrate your thankfulness to God by offering more of your life to God in worship?