Authentic Worship

We are on to week three of our Authentic series – and this week we are looking at what Authentic Worship is. And it’s a really interesting topic to research on the internet. Different people have such different perspectives and criteria for what makes worship authentic or not!

Some say that having a minister up front who might have some dodgy theology ruins the authenticity of worship. There are great debates on styles – some would call us the frozen chosen… that because our worship doesn’t often involve raised hands, closed eyes and intensely focused faces we can’t possibly be worshipping authentically. Others would say that churches that turn down the lights, set up the smoke machines and crank up the volume have lost authenticity in favour of the concert approach. There are articles on authentic worship and justice, authentic worship and song choice, authentic worship and lifestyle or liturgy or love.

But yet under all this, amidst the opinion and the preferences and the styles – I believe that worship, especially authentic worship, speaks to something far deeper than raised hands or pretty church buildings. And so this morning to unpack this a bit further I’m going to be looking at three different Bible passages.

But before we continue, let’s pray.

Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you – Father reveal yourself to us in Spirit and in Truth – may your word sink deep into our hearts and change us. In Jesus name – Amen.

Our first Bible passage comes from the book of John, John chapter 4, and it comes from the middle of a well-known story and well known conversation that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman beside a well. Jesus has stopped to rest in the middle of the day, his disciples have gone to find food, and he meets a woman coming to draw water alone. A conversation begins when much to her surprise he asks her for a drink – a hugely controversial thing to do firstly because she is a Samaritan – and Jews generally hated Samaritans, and secondly because she is a woman. In their conversation Jesus reveals to her that he is the source of living water, symbolic of the Spirit, and also that he knows her and her past. In verse 19 then we reach this piece of the conversation:

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

While this may seem a slightly bizarre line of questioning, and commentators differ in opinion as to whether her question is genuine or simply a distraction because things were getting too personal, Jesus treats the question as deserving of an answer. The Samaritans had been banned from the Temple, the one place where one could go and meet with God – and so they created their own place of worship. In many ways her question is – where is it that I can find God? Where is it that true authentic worship can happen?

And in many ways, here she is standing before the true God, before God made flesh, and asking about where to worship Him.

Jesus response gives us our first point about authentic worship: “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth.”

What Jesus is saying is that worship is not about a place, but rather worship is about what is in the heart. Worship is not bound to a building, or a style or a song – worship is about a heart attitude and a relationship. This is what makes it authentic.

And there are two things we can look at from this – the first is about what we do here on Sunday, and what happens in worships services throughout the world. True worship is not about the song choice, the building we stand in, about raised hands or sound quality. While these things are tools that can facilitate worship – worship is about what goes on within our hearts and souls and minds while we sing, while we fellowship, while we give, while we listen, and while we pray. The question needs to be – are you truly here? Is your mind and heart focused on God? Are you aware of the awesomeness that the Spirit of God enables us to pray? Are you spending these 60-90 minutes talking to your Father and listening to what He is saying?

Our minds are funny things and incredible things. It is totally possible to be somewhere and doing something with your body, while your mind plans, thinks, worries and imagines about something completely different. True worship means being present with God – using this time to engage with Him fully.

But it’s not just about here – Because true worship takes place in the heart, true worship then takes place wherever we go. Worship is not a box to tick once a week, and then we get back to our ‘normal’ lives. This is life. Worship is an attitude and focus that we take with us everywhere. And every single thing we engage in, from taking out the rubbish to playing with our children to running a board meeting to driving our cars is an offering to God.

And this leads us to our second point and our second reading – so if you’ll turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter 12: Romans chapter 12 and we’ll be reading from verses 1-3

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

This links in with last week’s topic of being authentically me… But it points to a life that is lived for God’s glory and not for self. That a life of worship is a life where the focus is on others, on service, on justice rather than on gain. Billy Graham said: that “The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service.” 

And when we come here on a Sunday we do not leave behind the secular space of business, politics, law, and so forth, and enter a sacred space. There is no secular space or sacred; God is always there.

As we enter a church for worship we carry with us our daily life in order to present that life to God. In daily life we can live, as it were, with God behind our backs; now we turn around and, facing God, present to God everything. We thank God for what we have found good in our lives and that of others, we lament to God for what we have found painful in our lives and that of others, we confess to God what we and others have done wrong, and we praise God for His incomparable majesty.

And we can do this in our daily quiet times, in prayer moments in the car or in moments where we come together as a family to give thanks for a meal. Worship is about life done with God, for God, and through God’s power within us.

So worship is not about a place, but about a heart attitude. Worship is not something we do in our life – but rather about offering our whole lives to God as an offering.

Our final reading comes from the prophet Habakkuk – and it comes from chapter 3, if you could turn there in your Bible. Habakkuk is one of the minor prophets and so comes near the end of the Old Testament.

The book of Habakkuk speaks about the coming Babylonian invasion of Judah, as God’s wrath on a nation that has become unjust, self serving and idol worshiping. It paints a pretty grim picture of the future and describes the coming calamity in detail. In many ways the chaotic future it describes is quite similar to the one we struggle with in our country at the moment. He speaks about violence and corruption, greed, fear and injustice. But then right at the end in verses 17-19 he says this:

“Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.” Hab 3:17-19

And this is our final point – that worship does not depend on circumstance. Worship does not happen in the little vacuum packed place where everything in my life is perfect and so I praise. Worship happens because God is worthy, because God is true and just, because God is faithful even when the world is broken and evil and false. The darkness of our circumstances only allows the brightness of God to shine brighter – and for us to worship the one who is able to deliver us – and able to work in our lives despite the chaos and fear. CS Lewis has this beautiful quote which reads:

 

And what happens when our worship is authentic, when we realise it’s not about us, but about God, that he is worthy and holy and beautiful and just – is that our focus realigns to His and we find peace, we find hope and we find strength to face whatever the world may throw at us. The Bible is full of examples and exhortations to worship God in the midst of heartache and trouble. Paul and Silas, beaten and thrown into prison are worshiping and singing songs of praise when God chooses to use an earthquake to free them.

Job, in the midst of agony, and unexplained suffering says: “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;… Indeed, this will turn out for my deliverance,”

Many of the Psalms begin with struggle and crying out to God – lamenting the struggle of life and the injustice of people – and yet end with praise:

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.”

Authentic worship happens because of who God is – it is a response to His love for us as displayed on the cross. It is a response to His power in conquering disease and darkness and death. It is a response to His faithfulness – that his promises of hope and deliverance will come to pass.

When we are authentically Christian, we know Jesus, we have a relationship with Him where he is Lord and on the throne of our lives, when we are authentically ourselves we recognise that we are loved and cherished because of who God is and not because of what we’ve done – it’s a place of humbling recognising that all I am and all I have is a gift.

And it is in the space of knowing who God is and knowing who I am that authentic worship happens. It is about our hearts. It is about our lives. It is about who God is, and that he is bigger than the circumstances around us.

To finish I’m going to quote some words of the song “Heart of Worship - Matt Redman that we sing here sometimes. It was a song composed during a period where his church was learning what it truly meant to worship, the bridge and the chorus say:

“I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what you have desired. You search much deeper within, past the way things appear – you’re looking into my heart.

I’m coming back to the heart of worship, and it’s all about you, it’s all about you Jesus. I’m sorry Lord for the things I’ve made it – when it’s all about you, it’s all about you Jesus.”

As we conclude our service here, and as you go out into your week, may it be all about Jesus. May your life be lived authentically, with a heart attitude of worship.

Let us pray