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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My wife and I sometimes reminisce about our university days, a time in our life we both had closeknit groups of friends, all living close to one another, all dedicated to some common academic pursuits.
With so much more going on in our lives now, and living in so many places, we’ve maintained those friendships but not with the intensity of those early years.
Those are some of the same characteristics of the early Christians we’ve been studying this week, who spent time living in close proximity, united, but for a very different purpose: praying to begin their work of expanding the kingdom of God.
These were the early days, with the intensity and fervour that people are still talking about, and trying to replicate today.
Every church community today is meant to be patterned after this one, and that’s why we’ll explore this in detail over the next few months.
Not to say every aspect is to be copied…some things were simply cultural, or circumstantial. We have to differentiate those from the eternal aspects.
I think the first thing for us to consider is their dedication to prayer.
I know this is always a challenge for me – to be dedicated, and fervent in prayer like these first Christians were.
Yet I know that prayer always precedes any great move of God.
As we prepare for our community to take some big steps this fall, and start to meet together as this biblical community did, our small groups and individuals need to pay attention to prayer.
Challenge: Pray with your group for this upcoming series. Pray that God will unite you through common experiences, and send you out in mission to include others and help them follow Jesus too.
See you tomorrow, when we’ll spend some more time in prayer. See you then.
