Acts 2:43, “Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.”
Have you ever been in awe? Have you ever been somewhere, seen something, experienced anything to cause the response, “That was awesome!” We use that phrase a little too commonly. Everything from really good ice cream to a ride on a roller coaster to a view of the Grand Canyon will cause us to respond, “Awesome!”
I am not going to diminish your experiences or even suggest we should never use that phrase to express our thoughts. What I do want you to consider is in the worship of God do you ever experience awe. This phrase in Acts 2 always gives me pause. “Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.” I have been in personal and public worship when I experienced a sense of awe. I have been witness to the Lord’s work in my life or around me and had the profound reality of the awesome nature of God.
Those moments have come in private and when in the presence of other followers of Jesus. But I have never been in a situation where “everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.” In fact, the realization of the awesomeness of God generally passes rapidly. That says nothing about His awesomeness and definitely says something about my capacity to not become distracted with the normal nature of this world.
Now we need to recognize this was an unusual moment in church history. God was birthing the church amid the people who had crucified the Christ. Jesus’ followers were experiencing an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that was necessary to bring about the institution that would usher in the Kingdom of God by having their lives radically transformed into powerful witnesses to the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
The church today still needs to be devoted to the worship of God. We must be aware of His awesomeness in our daily routines, in those special moments when His glory breaks through in an unusual way, and when we gather weekly with His people to have a time of worship. We must fight the tendency to not expect to encounter God’s awesome nature and for that to linger over us.
To help you in public and private worship consider these nine things Christian worship should be. This list is summarized from an article on the Gospel Coalition website (9 Things Christian Worship Should Be).
- Christian worship must be biblical (This means worship follows the patterns of Scripture, emphasizes the reading and teaching of Scripture, avoids the Bible’s warnings about what Scripture should not be, and worship is focused on what the Bible’s focus is – Jesus).
- Christian worship should be a dialogue not a monologue (Worship is initiated by God and we respond in a variety of ways including prayers, singing, hearing His word, sitting in silence, standing in adoration, giving, and serving).
- Christian worship is intended to affirm our covenant relationship with God (Worship rehearses God’s promises by expressing the gospel verbally, visibly, and experientially in the ordinances).
- Christian worship is Trinitarian (The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all part of our worship and should be recognized within our experience of worship and in our times of worship).
- Christian worship is corporate (We should worship privately but the public gathering of worship cannot be removed from a follower of Jesus’ life. Corporate worship expresses how the gospel brings together remarkably different people into the same family as the people of God).
- Christian worship sends us toward the world (The experience of worship seems very private and exclusive, but it is also a compelling force that causes us to gaze on Christ and on those for whom He died. “Missions exists, because worship does not,” writes John Piper).
- Christian worship is contextualized in its culture but is not worldly (Worshipping in America, Guatemala, Ukraine, Ghana, or India will look, feel, and sound differently, but is not trapped by those cultures and will challenge whatever is in a culture that is contrary to the gospel).
- Christian worship is an outpouring of complete selves to God (Our worship should always include the giving of ourselves and our best before the Lord).
- Christian worship expects an encounter with God (Worship is not an exercise of rituals or academic engagement with the Bible. It is an expectation that we will have an encounter with the One True and Living God, and that encounter will result in transformation of our heart, mind, and soul).
By His Grace and For His Glory,
Pastor Mark
