Worship as Response

 

  

  Pastor Fred continued the series on worship by preaching out of Colossians 3:12-17 and we could spend forever in this passage mining the truths that the Apostle Paul gives not only to Timothy and the church at Colossae in the first century, but to us in the twenty first century. If you want a piece of random information, theologians like John and Charles Wesley along with Martin Luther took popular songs of their day and put sound theology to the melodies and they used it in their worship

  The first thing that hit me was that forgiveness is apart of our worship. Just as we were forgiven by God, we shall forgive others as a part of our worship. Can we truly sing and worship God if we have bitterness, fear or hate in our hearts? Throughout the whole Bible, God tells us that He would rather for us to be in right relationship with Him and others over a well sung song or the gifts that we give. Even Jesus tells us to leave our gifts at the altar so we can go make things right with others. Can we truly sing and worship God without giving and receiving forgiveness?

  My second observation is that worship is sacrifice. In Romans 12 the Apostle Paul tells us that we are to be a living sacrifice. This means that worship takes our whole life and dedication, wether we are singing in church to mowing the lawn, and even at our place of employment, we do things and interact with people as a form of worship and for Gods glory and also to exalt Him. But I will warn all of us, being a living sacrifice means that it’s for Gods glory and not ours. The other is that being a living sacrifice means that we like to jump off of the altar and not be that living sacrifice because things get uncomfortable or we don’t like the direction that Gods calling us. 

  My third observation is that singing often is a great unifier. I was at a conference in college and the worship duo Shane and Shane led worship. After one teaching session, they came on stage and led worship and there is something about a bunch of over caffeinated and sleep deprived college students who came from all over the Midwest singing and worshiping together. God showed up that night and we worshiped as one. It didn’t matter our college, where we were from or if we had Armenian, Reformed or  Pentecostal theology, or who we voted for, because we were all there to worship the same Savior. Worship, especially singing helps us not only unifies and builds community, but it also restores our focus on who should be worshiped and that is God. 

  I will close with this, it’s easy to worship when we know the songs and we like the style, but can we still worship when we don’t know the songs and or despise the style? Also, do we check out when we don’t like the song, style, or are distracted by that days events. True worship is singing no matter if it is a Chris Tomlin song or a hymn from the 1500’s played on an organ, we worship God in song, because worship, especially singing is our response to what God has done for us and even through us. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead