Worship Part 3 - Living It Out Colossinans 10-16-11

Sermon oct 16 worship pt 3- living it out Colossians 3:1-17

Series sat-539
Prepare your heart
Engage and participate
Living it out

1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[b] 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

What we think about worship………….its here, it sit, I sing, I pray, I listen, I leave. Worship is over

If this is true then the rest of our life belongs to us

This is like a mafia buy off, protection money……..god we do our thing with you, so that I then get to spend the rest of my life doing whatever I want.

There is another choice……instead of living the human way, live for God. This is worship

Set your hearts on things above, not on these so human behaviors
The guilty list
The purpose of the guilty list- was never to guilt you but to point you toward the positive list- we just haven’t spend enough time talking about the positive list

Luke 17 the ten lepers – how many of them stop to say thanks? 1. When we live our worship, we are the one. God thank you for my wife. Thank you for my car. Thank you for my mean boss. Thank you for breath.

whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus

Worship is noT strange. It is the most normal thing that you do. Joy from cooking- thank god. Joy from driving a car? Thank god

Do you ever look at an airplane in flight and wonder wha thtey are doing?
Do you ever fly and look down from 4k feet…….look at the little cars……
He knows more about what we are doing than we know about what he is doing

Is our world dominated by work, shopping, hobbies, hurrying from one place to the next-
How can you do these things to the glory of god?
I cant always – often like peter in the garden..couldnt you watch w me one hr?
But I can do better, we all can do better at simply paying attention
Being aware, thinking about it.

First experience of worship- moving from kc to calif at age 12. God help me to make a better start, to make some friends. A 12 year old boy took a very mundane moment and made it holy.

To sing- my mom was a singer. Roamed the kitchen singing.
Fernando Ortega

Psalm 100- enter his gates
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his[a]; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

God shows up where ever he is honored, welcomed, loved, acknowledged.

This is really good stuff, but it gets even better when times are tough
Put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness-Is 61
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair

In worship we join the cosmos in praising God. The whole cosmos, every living being sings, the Psalmists insist.

The heavens declare the glory of God…ps 19

Do you like to go fishing, canoing, to the beach? To the redwoods? To burr oak woods? To the lake? To your back yard? Why? Nature declares Gods glory

250 ad pottery shard
May none of gods wonderful works Keep silence, night or morning.
Bright stars, high mountains, the depths of the seas, Sources of rushing rivers,
May all these break into song as we sing To father, son and holy spirit
May all the angels in the heavens reply- Amen, amen, amen
Power, praise, honour, eternal glory-To god the only giver of grace,
Amen, amen, amen
Harold and Maude -Maude describes the imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus on Devil’s Island, where he was “thrilled to watch the ‘most beautiful birds’.
“Later on in Brittany,” she said, “he realized they had only been seagulls.” The Cat Stevens music swells a bit, and then Maude explains to Harold, “for me they will always be glorious birds.”
conclusion
The giants of spiritual life are not so designed by the great moments of their life, but in the small routine seemingly begnin moments. Its not that oral roberts built a unitersity, its not that 30 k go to hear joel Osteen preach, its that you and me, we are stopping to acknowledge God

To take an act of your free will and turn yourself towards god, this is an act of worship

God is involved in changing the world, in changing our world. That begins when you notice that what you do, and how you do it matters. I am no longer doing something, I am doing something as unto the lord.

And life is filled with love and joy, and god is celebrated, and we live the life so intended for us.

We all have a deep hunger. What do we hunger for- the presence of God. How do we find it? Acknowledge him

Prepare Your Heart Worship Part 1 Psalm 51:10-17 10/2/11

Oct 2 prepare your heart Psalm 51:10-17 worship part 1b
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

New series- worship

1. Preparing for worship
2. Engaging in worship
3. Living it out

Take you to the door of the sanctuary- to the countdown

Worship is about meeting with God
Worship is the giving of one’s heart and soul

William Temple [bishop of cantebury 1881-1944] made this clear in his masterful definition of worship:
For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose -- and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.
Do we need to prepare? What happens if we don’t?
-We get more out of the things that we prepare for
-We think harder about why we are here

Ultimately - We cant wait until jeff opens his mouth to try and worship
If we do, it is too late
Something should happen when I drive onto the property

Lakeland church – dangers of this age – consumerism and individualism
It begins with what we offer to God, not with what we think we got out of it
When you give yourself to God, you do get something out of worship

Zan W. Holmes, Jr., tells why, returning to an African American adage, "If you don't put anything in, you won't get anything out. " In terms of worship, says Holmes, that means "you have to bring something to the sermon to get something out of it." He then goes on to tell the story of a "young college student who returned home for the holidays and accompanied his mother to church one Sunday. Afterward the young man said, 'The preacher was not too good today.' His mother said, 'Well, maybe not.' He said, 'I noticed that the choir was not too good today.' His mother said, "Well, maybe not.' Then she said to him, 'Well, son, tell me, how good were you today?"'

Steps to prepare
1. Understand that your relationship with God is the most important thing
-this seems a little odd
-until you understand that your breath is a gift from him
-who will you call on in a time of trouble
-who will you look to when you are on your death bed?

2. Clear space in your heart and mind
-get rid of your cell phone
-don’t fight in the car on the way here
-Don’t make the grocery list in church

3. Begin to offer self
a. Quiet time
b. Centering prayer
c. Breathing- breath prayers
d. The labrynth
e. Find the one thing- Rick Taylor

How do pastors prepare
Worry, work, take care of what needs to be done.

Pray- God where am I , where are you?
Connecting your heart and Gods heart with this sermon
God this is the best that I have, please add your holy spirit, touch the people

In psalm 51 david is getting to the bottom of it
Post david and Bathsheba
A broken and contrite heart is what God is looking for.
Describe contrite – God I am here for you
The carol reads "O Come, let us adore Him;" not "O Come, let us ignore Him."
If we get this part right, everything else will follow

This is what I love about communion, Preparing to come to the Lords table
World communion Sunday