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Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
How old is this song anyway? I should
Google that when I get home. I hope
the pastor doesn’t wear those skinny
jeans today…
Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
What on God’s green Earth is an
Ebenezer?
What on God’s green Earth is an
Ebenezer?
I hope this song doesn’t say anything
about “lifting my hands” or anything. I
always feel bad not doing it…
O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind
my wandering heart to thee.
FETTER???
Okay – they’re just making up words
now…
FETTER???
Okay – they’re just making up words
now…
Man, I really hope the sermon isn’t
about money today…
“We were created continuously
outpouring. Note that I did not say we
were created to be continuous outpourers.
Nor can I dare imply that we were created
to worship. This would suggest that God is
an incomplete person whose need for
something outside himself (worship)
completes his sense of himself.
It might not even be safe to say that we
were created for worship, because the
inference can be drawn that worship is a
capacity that can be separated out and
eventually relegated to one of several
categories of being.
I believe it is strategically important,
therefore, to say that we were created
continuously outpouring—we were created
in that condition, at that
instant, imago Dei.”
- Harold Best
“We are not created to worship or even for
worship – we are created worshipping.”
“Worship is not an aspect of our lives – but
the essence of our being.”
“We reflect what we revere to our ruin or
our redemption”
15 Through
him then let us continually offer
up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the
fruit of lips that acknowledge his
name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to
share what you have, for such sacrifices are
pleasing to God.
17 Obey
your leaders and submit to
them, for they are keeping watch over your
souls, as those who will have to give an
account. Let them do this with joy and not
with groaning, for that would be of no
advantage to you. – Hebrews 13:15-17
hishtahvah
hishtahvah
“bow down with reverence and respect”
hishtahvah
“bow down with reverence and respect”
proskuneo
Letters of Paul –
Letters of Peter, James, John –
Letters of Paul – 1
Letters of Peter, James, John –
Letters of Paul – 1
Letters of Peter, James, John – 0
21 Jesus
said to her, “Woman, believe me, the
hour is coming when neither on this
mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship
the Father.22 You worship what you do not
know; we worship what we know,
for salvation is from the Jews.
23 But
the hour is coming, and is now here,
when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is
seeking such people to worship him.
24 God
is spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The
woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is
coming (he who is called Christ). When he
comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said
to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
- John 4:21-26
“So you can see what is happening in the New
Testament. Worship is being
significantly de-institutionalized, de-localized,
de-ritualized. The whole thrust is being taken
off of ceremony and seasons and places and
forms; and is being shifted to what is
happening in the heart - not just on Sunday,
but every day and all the time in all of life.”
– John Piper
“Idolatry is by far the most frequently
discussed problem in the Scriptures.”
– Dr. David Powlison
“Sin is the despairing refusal to find your
deepest identity in your relationship and
service to God. Sin is seeking to become
oneself, to get an identity apart from him…
Most people think of sin primarily as
“breaking divine rules,” but Kierkegaard
knows that the very first of the Ten
Commandments is to “have no other gods
before me.”
So, according to the Bible, the primary way to
define sin is not just the doing of bad things,
but the making of good things into ultimate
things.
It is seeking to establish a sense of self by
making something else more central to your
significance, purpose, and happiness than
your relationship to God.”
– Tim Keller (The Reason for God)
“They exchanged the truth about God for a
lie, and worshiped and served created things
rather than the Creator—who is forever
praised.” - Romans 1:25
“Sometimes the heart of the matter is a
matter of the heart”
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and
sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer
your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
pleasing to God—this is your true and
proper worship
Do not conform to the pattern of this
world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. Then you will be
able to test and approve what God’s will
is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
- Romans 12:1-2
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever
you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
- 1 Corinthians 10:31
“The life of the Puritan was in one sense
a continuous act of worship, pursued
under an unremitting and lively sense of
God's providential purposes and
constantly refreshed by religious activity,
personal, domestic and public.”
- Patrick Collinson
"We begin with one fundamental fact
about worship: at this very moment, and
for as long as this world endures,
everybody inhabiting it is bowing down
and serving something or someone—an
artifact, a person, an institution, an idea,
a spirit, or God through Christ.
Everyone is being shaped thereby and is
growing up toward some measure of
fullness, whether of righteousness or of
evil. No one is exempt and no one can
wish to be.
We are, every one of us, unceasing
worshipers and will remain so forever, for
eternity is an infinite extrapolation of one
of two conditions: a surrender to the
sinfulness of sin unto infinite loss or the
commitment of personal righteousness
unto infinite gain.
This is the central fact of our existence,
and it drives every other fact. Within it
lies the story of creation, fall,
redemption, and new creation or final
loss.” – Harold Best