From the Pastor |
March 15, 2020 – During State of Emergency due to Covid 19 Outbreak - Transcript of Online Worship Message Given
As you are probably aware, many local congregations (including our own) are following recommendations to not hold public gatherings… including worship. While I do believe much of the hysteria that seems to have gripped a large portion of our society is unwarranted… I do believe that it is both reasonable and responsible to be cautious. Our church is part of an aging community and many of our members and neighbors fall into the “High Risk” category. So as we strive to keep all our people safe and cease the spread of this virus… let us take some time… relax in our homes and worship the Lord our God. Come, let us worship the Lord as we listen for God’s word and live in the hope it inspires. Let us Pray: Loving and caring God, we come this morning in hope… hope that will sustain us through these difficult times… times when we are more isolated than normal as we practice “social distancing.” Times that can cause us to feel more alone than usual. Refresh us this morning with the living water of your presence and love. Open us to the possibilities of encountering you in unexpected ways, the possibilities of seeing the your miraculous works every day. Help us move from the paths of selfishness and stubbornness, and back to your paths of hope and peace. Enable us to place our whole trust in your love. We pray in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen. Psalm 95 (NIV) – This is a wonderful Psalm filled with both a powerful invitation to worship 1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. 3 For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice, 8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. 10 For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” John 4: 19-26 – Jesus, while resting at Jacob’s well in Samaria, meets a Samaritan woman, speaks to her about living water and reveals himself as the Messiah to her. She offers an important question for today: Where is the right place to worship God? 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.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Worship the Lord Wherever You Are The third week of Lent is an appropriate time to take a breath and give God thanks for the amazing gift we have received… the gift of worship. As Disciples of Christ Jesus, there’s nothing more important than worship. Worship is what we were made for, and our Psalm this morning is a call to worship the Lord. Psalm 95 begins in exuberance as we are called to come into God’s presence with joy. “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.” Sing and extol God with music and song... Now THAT sounds like worship to me! But is that all there is to worshipping our Lord? What is worship? The dictionary defines worship as: “to honor or show reverence… to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.” But as we learn from this psalm, true worship is more than showing reverence and honor… worship involves our whole being… body, mind, spirit and emotions. We are instructed to “sing for joy… shout aloud… come before [the Lord] with thanksgiving…” to “bow down in worship… to kneel before the Lord” with open hearts “For the Lord is the great God… [and] he is our God!” We are to sing and shout… to pray and show reverence… To worship is to be actively engaged with all that we are. Simply going to church or another house of worship for an hour on Sunday… is not worship unless it affects both our emotions and our will to change. As the story goes: Satan was standing outside a church building one Sunday morning. Inside, the people were singing, praying, and listening to the preaching. A person walking by saw him there and asked Satan if it bothered him that so many people were in side. Satan chuckled and said “No! They get that way on Sunday, but they will be mine on Monday. It’s just a little habit they’ve picked up.” Just a little habit they have picked up? What does that say about our own times of worship? That reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew 15: 7-9: “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’” You see… worship is supposed to make a difference in who we are and what we do. This is what Jesus was telling the woman he met at the well in Samaria when he said “the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth...” During their conversation at the well, she had brought up a contentious subject between the Samaritans and the Jews. She said: “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” She wanted his take on the question. He had greatly impressed her and she desired to know who was right… where is the correct place to worship God? But instead of taking sides, Jesus gave this woman a different perspective: “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” If we are to truly worship God… it does not matter WHERE we worship… but we must worship God in spirit and in truth. According to Jesus, God is not impressed by worship if it does not come from the heart. It does not matter where the worshipper is. Instead of worshipping God in a physical temple, synagogue, church or on a particular mountain… God is to be worshiped “in spirit and in truth.” True worship must be “in spirit,” that is, engaging the whole heart. Jesus tells us that worship is first and foremost an experience of the heart. Prayer without heart is in vain. Songs without heart are in vain. Confession and creeds and liturgies and sermons that don’t come from the heart are empty and worthless in God’s eyes. At the same time, worship must be “in truth” which includes the truth about who God is and what God does, and the truth of what is going on in our world. Given our current circumstances… I thought that these readings are very apropos. Too often we consider worship to be what takes place during the Sunday morning service at our local church. Although true worship certainly ought to take place whenever and wherever believers gather together, it should not stop when we go our separate ways. We should worship the Lord in everything we do, even down to the most basic actions of daily life. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31) “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.” (Colossians 3:17) True worship is not limited to any particular location; it encompasses all of a believer’s life. So, as we are unable to gather together, let us remember to worship the Lord Our God. Let us take time to sing to the Lord with joy and thanksgiving… to bow down and offer the prayers of our hearts… “Enter his gates with thanksgiving [in your hearts] and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” (Psalm 100: 4-5) Let us each… wherever we are… call out to God with joy and thanksgiving… let us kneel and pray with all our heart… “For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. he sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land…. for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.” Amen
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Yeon Shin
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