Northside Church - Sydney
Finding You In Community Week 1: The Power of One Hour
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Now, we're commencing a brand new series for June at its entitled Finding Community. Now, you may have already picked that there's a deeper meaning to this. It's finding you in community, hence the big capital you. Our mission statement here at Northside is building the community, that is the community of faith, that's us, to serve our community. That is the community that exists beyond the walls of this church locally, nationally, internationally. And essentially, the big idea at all good series and sermons have to have a big idea. The big idea of this series is this, our effectiveness as a church in mission is commensurate with the number of people who find their role and purpose within the community of faith. Finding community, more particularly finding you in community. Where do you fit him? Where do I fit in? So in this series, we're really seeking to answer the question, what does it take to be a really effective member of Northside? We don't have prescriptions for membership, you have to do this, this, this, this. We simply ask you to believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. If you believe that, you can become a member of this church. We don't have a whole long list of rules and regulations. But in this series, we are going to focus on what does it take to be a really effective member, a productive member, a member who's finding themselves within the community. We're going to cover worship, connection group, service, generosity. Today it's worship, the power of one hour. And I've got a question for you, what's been your most inspiring, most powerful experience of worship? When was that happening? Now some of you, your minds are racing, you're thinking, some of you have been, as I have to some of the great cathedrals of the world, might be thinking of some service you went to in a massive cathedral overseas, maybe you're thinking of a Hillsong convention where you get the chance to sing and praise with thousands of other Christians and they are inspiring times because of this church's association with the Crystal Cathedral over many years. Maybe some of you are thinking about a service you may have attended at the Crystal Cathedral. I've been there many, many times over the years and in its heyday, when it was really added full strength, the services there were just awe-inspiring. Just sitting in that 3,000 seat cathedral for a start is a moving experience. There's not one solid panel either on the walls or the ceiling so you look up, you see the sky, you look out, you see the trees, the buildings around, it's just all glass. And then at the beginning of the service, the 25-piece orchestra would fire up. And then the 60 to 80-voice choir would burst into song with joyful, joyful, weir-daw thee. And then down the center aisle, the fountains, the whole bunch of fountains would suddenly burst into life. Just if you were sitting there one you'd get splashed sometimes. And then these 20-meter glass doors behind the pulpit would open up, allowing the breezes and the sunshine and occasional birds to come in. And then Dr. Schiller would stand and give that signature call to worship. This is the day that God has made, we will rejoice and be glad. And I've got to tell you, in the heyday of the crystal cathedral, I didn't know of any service anywhere that started in a more spine-tingling way. They'd do it every single week, several times a week. But you know I have to say, that's not where I've had my most inspiring experience of worship. No, no, no. It's going to come back to that. You see, there's more to this question than we might think. And to truly explain, to fully explore rather, to fully explore what I mean here, we need to take a closer look at our reading from Colossians. Here's Paul, and he's describing the ideal church. He's urging the Christians in the Colossian church to embrace and to exhibit a long list of qualities and attributes and characteristics needed to make them a distinctive, highly effective Christian community, body of believers. Can I refresh your memory on that reading brought to us by Anne, at least a few verses, verse 12. He says, "You are the people of God. He loved you. He chose you for his own so that you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, be tolerant with one another. And forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else, you must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities, add love which binds all things together in perfect unity. Paul is clearly saying a church that exhibits these qualities is able to minister with great effectiveness. And then in verse 16, he makes a kind of summary statement that kind of capture everything that he's been trying to say. And this is what he says in verse 16, "Christ's message in all its richness must dwell or rather must live in your hearts." Now here's the centerpiece. Here's the very centerpiece of his challenge to the Colossians. It's about having an experience of Christ that is rich, that is strong, that is authentic, that is heartfelt. And then in the second half of verse 16, he hasn't finished yet. He says this, "Teach and instruct one another with all wisdom. Sing Psalms, hymns and sacred songs sing to God with thanksgiving in your hearts." It's a clear reference to worship. You don't do those sort of things on your own. You do it with others for the most part. So in a passage that talks about the ideal church, a united, loving, caring, forgiving community of believers, Paul cites worship as one of the primary drivers in the establishment and the maintenance of harmony, unity, and effectiveness. Worship, right at the center of it all. Now surprisingly, and this may surprise you, there are very few references to corporate worship in the New Testament. Is that surprising? But from those we do have, it's clear that worship played a very important role in the life and the witness of the early church. One reference that's particularly important for us in churches of Christ is Acts chapter 20, verse 7, where speaking of the church and Ephesus, it says that on the first day of the week, they met for the fellowship meal, the communion. And when churches of Christ were founded in the early 1800s in America, our founding fathers, the Campbells, in the absence of any other teaching on the frequency of communion, they decided to latch on to that verse. And that's why in the Church of Christ, all around the world, even to this day, we serve communion every Sunday, first day of the week. It's one verse, but how many verses do you need? That was the thinking of the Campbells. In his letter to Timothy, his first letter, Paul sets out instructions on how to worship, how the services should be conducted, and he does that in Corinthians as well. And there's a special emphasis in Corinthians, of course, on the Lord's supper. So in a church like Northside, it should be clear why we invest so much time and energy and resources into this thing we call worship. We have a staff member who spends a big part of his time, Michael Thomas, in this very area, why it's because we believe in the crucial importance of worship, to the health and the well-being of the faith community. We want as many of our people here on any given Sunday to experience an enriching soul-strengthening experience of worship. But in order for our worship to achieve that purpose, we need to be aware of a few things. And maybe I can hold your attention in the remainder of this sermon by stating that in answer to my original question, where have you experienced your most inspiring worship, my most powerful and inspirational experiences of worship have been right here at Northside. Now friends, in saying that, I'm not saying that, that's because I believe that we have it all together and that we run services better than anywhere else and that our approach is superior, not at all. That would be presumption in the extreme. No, my answer arises out of a carefully worked out theology of worship that I've developed over the years based on what I believe is in the Word of God. And it includes the following, the following understanding of worship, meaningful, enriching soul-strengthening worship is a number of things. First of all, it's not about performance, it's about participation. Sam and I sat in the front row of a mega church in Los Angeles late last year in a service that had thousands in the auditorium, thousands more in sort of breakout areas with big screens. And the two people leading worship, a male and a female, everybody in our group agreed that the quality of their singing was such that probably they would win Australian Idol, the voice, Australia's got a talent, you name it, they probably would have won that hands down. I mean, it was just, it was just amazing, the quality of their singing, stunning and amazing performance. Now I'm not suggesting that was their intention, not at all. That was not at their intention, but we didn't know them. And so it could have appeared that way to a guest. It was inspirational, it was exciting, but it was nothing like sitting in a worship service like this where we know who's up the front. We know them by name, we're journeying with them, we know the people we're sitting with or we're getting to know them, we're all journeying together, we're all participating in an expression of praise and thanksgiving and celebration arising out of what's currently happening in the life of the church, arising out of what's currently happening within our own lives and what God is doing in our midst. In that sense, it's not about emotion, it's about devotion. Now of course there's emotion involved in worship and I'll be the services as you have, which have stirred my emotions like you wouldn't believe. But if we expect, if we expect to receive an emotional high every time we worship, if we become excessively dependent on services, we're attending to providers with a massive spiritual shot in the arm, there are going to be times when we probably got to be disappointed because our participation in worship is not intended, or rather it's intended to be an expression of our devotion and our thanksgiving to God. It's not like entry into some spiritual Disneyland, that's not real worship. I never cease to give thanks to God that from my perspective, our experiences of worship here do impact the senses and they stir our emotions and we achieve this with an emphasis on excellence. That's one of the ways we achieve it, excellence and seamlessness why to reduce the possibility of distractions and impediments to the movement of God's spirit. That's why we do it. I've been in services where sloppy preparation and sloppy presentation jars and that interferes with the movement of God's spirit, whereas if the quest is for excellence and seamlessness, that possibility is greatly reduced. You get the thinking there? Link to this point is the fact that meaningful and enriching worship is not about my needs being met, it's about my needs being identified. My needs and yours being revealed and us being willing to allow God to meet those needs. When Paul was right into the Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 28, he said we should examine ourselves before we take the bread and the wine, let a person examine themselves and then let them eat. In other words, corporate worship provides a unique opportunity for reflection and for self-analysis and that's an important part of anybody's spiritual growth and development. How are we traveling? What are my needs? What are my points of vulnerability? One of the things I'm yet to surrender to God, when that's our desire, we move beyond the need to have things in the service done our way. We move beyond our pet little likes and dislikes and we see the whole event as an opportunity to get real with God. Here's something else. Worship is not about feeling good, it's about feeling part of. It's about a sense of belonging. Why are the services here my favourite? Why are they the ones I find most inspirational as were the ones in my last church and the church before that? Why is that? Because this is my church home, this is your church home. This is where I love and, on a good day, am loved. It's the same for you. Here's where I see lives changed, here's where I see people baptised into Christ, here's where people see received Christ, here's where people are prayed over, here's where people are anointed, here's where I can look out on a group of people and look at faces with him I've laughed, with him I've cried. I mean, you just don't get that when you're in a strange place no matter how inspirational it might be and no matter how good it may make you feel for a short time. You just don't get that. No prizes for guessing, the next point, meaningful soul strengthening worship is not about what I can get, it's about what I can give. You know, we can revolutionise our enjoyment of worship and celebration when we adopt this attitude, when we approach each service with, will I like, not with, not with, will I like the person who's leading today or who's preaching or have they chosen my favourite songs? Or will my preferred seat be available? I think that's quite an issue here at Northside, but when Bev and I arrived in Sydney before we started ministry here, we had about six or eight weeks of leave owing to us and we took that and we made the decision we would go to different churches of Christ on any given Sunday because we knew that once we started here we would never do that. So I remember going to a church and I won't name the church because your auntie or uncle probably goes there and we got there quite early, punctuality is something I do stress, so we got there quite early and place was less than half full with five minutes to go. We just sit here waiting pensively for the service and a lady came up to me and she said, "Excuse me, you're sitting in our seats." And if you can check with Bev, this happened, Bev, yes, she's there. And I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, you're on your own." My friend will be arriving shortly. We always sit here. Now look, it didn't worry, ask me. But if you're there a little bit tentative and a little bit nervous and wondering what you're doing there, that could be quite, you know, well, it kind of made us smile. It wasn't anything that made us smile on that six-week period, I've got to tell you, we haven't got time for that. Coming to worship with a giving attitude involves a number of things. It involves making the decision to be in church during the week. How does that grab you? Making the decision by about Thursday. We're going to be in church this week. That then saves you from a more tempting offer on Saturday. Seriously. Or how you might feel when you wake up. You know, I'm allowing for health and stuff. But like, it's a bit dull, don't think so. I mean, like if you've made the decision, I'm going to be with my brothers and sisters on Sunday. If you've made that by about Thursday, it makes it that much easier. Being punctual and supportive of our ministry team, our worship team, praying along with the prayers. You know, I know people who look up the passage during the week and read it off the internet. They get the passage and they read it, prepare for the sermon. Having an openness of heart as to what God may say to you and through you. Friends, our most meaningful and enriching soul strengthening experiences of worship can be, should be right here. Because worship is not something we merely observe or attend, it's what happens arising out of what God is doing among us. It's part of the life, blood of our church. Wow, here's my final word, it's to me, it's to all of us. And it's really a challenge. A challenge to think about the importance of worship in a fresh way, as we discover our place in this community, as we experience the power of one hour. It's this, meaningful, enriching, soul strengthening worship is not about how often can I afford to attend. It's really about how often can I afford not to attend. (laughing)