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pastorway

And He Himself gave some to be....evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ...
- Ephesians 4:11-12

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO www.timeintheword.org

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Location: The Hill Country of Texas

Pastor - Providence Reformed Baptist Church
Director - TIME in the Word Ministries

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Authentic Worship - Part 2

Here is the link for Part Two of Al Mohler's commentary titled "The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory: The Recovery of Authentic Worship."

And here are a few more excerpts:

Where shall we turn for instruction on how we ought to worship? There is only one place we can turn, and that is to the Word of God. The norm of our worship must be the Word of God--this Word that He has spoken. As we turn to this Word, we do see a pattern of worship, a pattern that is replicated throughout the fabric of Scripture from beginning to the end.

.......

What does the holiness of God mean? It means certainly His separateness from his creation. He is what we are not. We are finite; He is infinite. God is transcendent. God's separateness certainly reveals the difference, the infinite contrast between His moral nature and ours. Holiness also certainly refers to His majesty and power.

.......

I wonder if the vision of the God held by so many who come to worship is anything like what the seraphim are telling us here. Do we worship with the understanding that God is holy and that "the whole earth is full of His glory?" I fear not. I wonder if in our worship we encounter anything like this vision of God. Do those who come to our services of worship come face to face with the reality of God? Or do they go away with a vision of some lesser God, some dehydrated deity? Worship is the people of God gathering together to confess his worthiness, his "worth-ship." How can we do that if we do not make clear who God is? Our very pattern of worship must testify to the character of God.

.......

My haunting thought concerning much evangelical worship is that the God of the Bible would never be known by watching us worship. Instead what we see in so many churches is "McWorship" of a "McDeity." But what kind of God is that superficial, that weightless, and that insignificant? Would an observer of our worship have any idea of the God of the Bible from our worship? I wonder at times if this is an accidental development, or if it is an intentional evasion.

.......

I quote Tozer again: "We have simplified until Christianity amounts to this: God is love; Jesus died for you; believe, accept, be jolly, have fun and tell others. And away we go--that is the Christianity of our day. I would not give a plug nickel for the whole business of it. Once in a while God has a poor bleeding sheep that manages to live on that kind of thing and we wonder how."

2 Comments:

Blogger Dan McGowan said...

Hello Pastor Way,

I've been around church for a long time - some 35 years. For about 30 of those years I have been involved in music and worship ministry. I, too, have seen a lot of fluff passed off as "authentic worship" and I share the same call to help others come face to face with what Biblical worship REALLY means.

So - what is it?

10:18 PM  
Blogger Phillip M. Way said...

Good Question.

I have a few posts on the blog here that deal with the answer, and I will have several sermons online soon that deal with some specific texts that speak directly to a Biblical view of worship (when they are online I will post about it on the blog).

Available already you can find the following at the links provided:

Devotionals:
Worship in Spirit and Truth>
Recovering a Right View of Worship

Sermons online:
The Sacrifice of Fools - Wrong Worship

Sermons available online soon:
Worship in Spirit and Truth - John 4
Motives Behind Right Worship - Genesis 4:1-15
What Does Worship Look Like - Selected Scriptures
Worship that Displeases God - Ex 20:1-11

So stay tuned!

~pw

10:26 PM  

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