Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

PASTOR'S PENS 2008

November 9th “Worship is the missing jewel of the church.”   A. W. Tozer                                                                                 When I was in high school, I studied both Latin and Greek. Latin students have a traditional ditty that they often say, “Latin is a language as dead as it can be; it killed the ancient Romans and now it's killing me.” One of the most difficult languages to learn though is English. Here are some examples of why English is so hard to learn:  The bandage was wound around the wound.  The farm was used to produce produce.  We must polish the Polish furniture.  The insurance was invalid for the invalid.                 Let's face it, English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger, and no apple nor pine in pineapple. If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what other language do people have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?                 Then, there are oxymorons. An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms. It’s a loanword from Greek oxy (sharp or pointed) and moros (dull). Thus, the word oxymoron itself is an ancient oxymoron. Some of my favorite oxymorons are: act naturally, found missing, genuine imitation, living dead, new classic, plastic glasses, pretty ugly, twelve-ounce pound cake, diet ice cream, working vacation, plastic silverware and professional wrestling. And here's one much more serious self-contradictory phrase: boring worship.                  In various surveys when people are asked why they don't go to church, they often reply that church is just too boring. While I recognize that sometimes a church service can seem dull, especially to an unbeliever, true worship is anything but boring. The very essence of what worship is does not allow us to be bored. When we come before the majestic God of the universe Who has created everything and has done amazing things in our lives, we can't help but break out into adoration.                 As we examine God’s Word, we don’t find coldness or deadness in worship anywhere in the Scriptures. Boring worship is a Biblical abnormality. What we need then is a radically, transforming experience from the Lord; the kind of spiritual renewal that will help restore our souls, heal our divided marriages and homes, and unify our churches into a true community of God. We need vibrant worship that strips away our religious veneer and brings us back to spiritual reality; that restores true spiritual values, a Biblical worldview and replaces cheap counterfeits that we’ve created to take the place of God. Most of all, we need that which will bring glory to God, so much so that the world will sit up and take notice and confess that “God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:25).                 Personally, I believe that there are two primary problems we have with worship today. 1) Our view of God is too small and shaped according to our own thinking. 2) We do not have a Biblical understanding of worship. As someone described American Christians, “We have become a generation of people who worship our work, work at our play and play at our worship.”  When our worship grows stale, so does our passion for God. Worship is the furnace of the spiritual life. Sadly, too many of us come to church because it’s Sunday, rather than coming on Sunday to worship. Far too many of us come to get blessed, rather than to bless. God wants us to experience real worship.                 Worship is a response to our awesome God. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” Because God has loved us and called us and saved us and provided for us, we respond to His love and mercy and saving power by declaring His worth in worship.                 Worship is heartfelt. Jesus said in John 4:23, “A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” It involves digesting precious truths deep into our hearts. Genuine worship is not an emotion, yet is emotional. God’s grace always touches our emotions.                 Worship is that which values Him above everyone and everything else. It’s declaring worth and value. We worship God because He is absolutely worthy and supremely valuable. When asked what was the greatest of all the Old Testament commandments, Jesus said in Mark 12:30, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first [foremost] commandment.” No one or no thing should be of higher value to us than God. As much as we love our families, we must love God even more.                 Then, worship is a choice. David wrote, “I will extol the LORD at all times; His praise will always be on my lips” (Psalms 34:1).                 Worship does not have to be a missing jewel. It can be the crowning jewel of our church. Let’s make it that in each of our lives and in our church!