This week, we’re exploring how a church community should be committed to connectedness to God in worship.
Humans will never be more connected to God than in the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God. The Bible includes the book of Revelation, which recounts John’s vision of the kingdom of heaven. Here’s what he described about angels, and then humans:
Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE Lord GOD ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS, AND IS, AND IS TO COME.” Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Revelation 4:8-11)
Even in the kingdom, there is worship. The word may not appear in this reading, but the core meaning is there. Worship means “to give worth to something.” And the words “you are worthy” are right at the beginning of the words the elders say in their heavenly worship.
You can tell what someone values by how they spend money, time. You can see what’s worth their limited resources. Worship is spending our limited time on God. It’s an expression of love.
In our Marriage and Parenting courses, we introduce the five love languages. Some communicate and receive love through words, touch, acts of service, time, and others through gifts.
In the same way, we can show love to God through various “languages”. Worship includes prayer, and music, confessing sins, asking forgiveness, reminding ourselves what we believe, reading the Bible together, and more. All aspects of how communities of Christians worship.
These are all ways to communicate God’s worth in our eyes. You can see it in this reading. The elders say, “You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power” but then they tell him why: he is the creator of everything.
He knows all this, of course. But this is a time for humans, mortals, to feed that back to him. To acknowledge he is at the cetner of our lives, not the periphery, and we’re not going to deny it.
Question: How do you know someone values you? What do they say, do, or not?
Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Jesus’ description of God as a loving, caring father who wants to provide for our needs, not necessarily our wants, means that God answers prayer in one three ways: Yes, No, Later
Most of us are happy when God says Yes to our prayers, although you should be warned that sometimes we get more than we bargained for when God says yes to our prayers, because the yes may lead to consequences we could never have imagined. So sometimes in a clear, and often dramatic way, God will say Yes to our prayers. We asked to hear Redeem the Commute stories, and the very day that someone prayed about that, we heard Jason’s story.
But sometimes God will say no for a variety of reasons. Our prayers may have the wrong motives, like “drop dead prayers”. Prayers for revenge, fame and fortune rarely get answered with the word yes.
Sometimes we are praying for simply frivolous things. “Lord please give us a sunny day for a soccer match”---when the local farmers are praying for rain. Sometimes God says no because we are requesting what is not good for us, and we can’t even see it. God loves us and knows what it is best for us.
Yesterday: Good parents do not always give their children what they ask for. If a 4 year old asks to play with the knives a good parent says no. By answering every prayer Yes, God would in effect abdicate, turning the world over to us to run. History shows how we have handled the limited freedom granted to us: genocide, wars, polluted the earth, concentrated pockets of wealth and grinding poverty.
God will answer no if the things we ask for are either not good in themselves, or not good for us, or good for others, either immediately or ultimately. Ruth Graham (Billy Graham’s wife) tells a story “God has not always granted my requests. If he had I would have married the wrong man, several times.
Awful things happen in world – like Oklahoma tornadoes. Some were praying in that moment of terror or death. Some people are still alive, and were not praying. Exactly how God answers prayer is a mystery. All that we say today about prayer must be said with all humility because at some point we stand back and respect and bow our heads before the mystery of prayer, especially the mystery of hearing the word No.
Later is of course a combination of Yes and No. Yes, but not now. No for now, but yes for later. And of course what we may perceive as a no right now, is in fact a later. Sometimes no and later can in hindsight be a great blessing, that only makes sense in hindsight.
Question: Since prayers can be answered in these three ways, how do you think Jesus wants his followers to pray?
