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Setting Your Sail for Worship
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, September 25, 2005
In the year 2000, Pablo Picasso’s famous painting, ‘Woman
in Blue,’ sold for an amazing $28.6 million at Christie’s auction in New York.
Some people are willing to pay immense amounts of money for what they perceive
to be beauty. What for you is beauty? How much would you pay for it?
When you come to the Bible, you will discover that the
Bible embraces beauty. You will discover that beauty is often praised as it
relates to God’s creation. You will also discover worship is described as
beauty. The scripture says, “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”
Worship is many things to many people on any given Sunday. For example, for us
on different Sundays it can be encouragement, relationship with the Lord,
cleansing, healing, inspiration, it can be all of those things, but when you get
right down to the hub of it, worship is to affirm the worth of God for you and
God’s esteem and understanding of your worth. You see, worship is made of two
words. The first one of these is the word ‘worth.’ You see, worth is something
all of us acquire from somebody else. It gives us our sense of worth.
It was Habitat for Humanity week with First African
Baptist, so for several days our members were with them as they were working on
a Habitat for Humanity house. When I take a spiritual gifts test, that kind of
skill I never even scratch. But I can hold and carry and be a gopher and I was
there. One of ours, Jeff Dortch who is this very skilled carpenter and all the
rest of it, was there We were to sheet rock a whole house and we did. He was
there with his drill, his gun and putting screws in sheet rock. I had never
seen screws in sheet rock before. I thought you always, boom, boom, boom with a
hammer…that was the way he did. He handed that drill to me and said, why don’t
you do it? I said, well I don’t know how. Oh yeah, I’ll show you. So he
showed me. Well, in the first place you’ve got to get the drill the right speed
and I didn’t. The second place you have to get the screw going the right way.
Anyway, I finally got up one row and I said, well Jeff, how did I do? He said,
well pastor, let me put it this way, if I were you I wouldn’t give up my day
job.
Worth or evaluation always comes outside in. That’s where
self-esteem has its Achilles heel. For you to have self-esteem it has to begin
by somebody esteeming you and that’s what worship does. Worship allows you to
feel worthwhile because you think God is worthwhile, it flows through God and it
comes right straight to you. And ship – worthship – ship in English when you
add that to a word it means skill or ability or competence. Penmanship,
seamanship, discipleship…worthship means you have in your heart what it is
that’s going to allow you to worship the Lord. How do you do this?
There is a scripture in the New Testament that I think can
help us. It is not about worship, but it is a wonderful parable about worship.
Will you turn to Luke 5 please? . The first thing as you read verse one you’re
going to find a gathering of the people. Listen…”One day as Jesus was standing
by the Lake of Gennesaret, that’s the Sea of Galilee, with the people crowding
around Him and listening to the word of God, He saw at the water’s edge two
boats left there by the fisherman who were washing their nets. He got into one
of them, one belonging to Simon and asked him to put out a little from the shore
and He sat down and taught the people from the boat.”
You see, worship happens not because of a building, but
because of people. In the Old Testament, worship centers around the temple.
For example, David in a marvelous Psalm, Psalm 27, when he expresses worship is
going to do so not as we would, people, but around the temple. Listen to what
he says…”One thing I ask of the Lord and this is what I seek that I may dwell in
the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the
Lord and seek Him in His temple. At His tabernacle will I sacrifice with joy
and sing music to the Lord.”
Jesus taught in the temple, but He also taught on a street
corner. Jesus cleansed the temple, He also prayed in the temple. He wasn’t
against the buildings; what He was against was deifying the building as being
the place God was. Now He’s alongside the shore and He has made the sandy
shore, I should say rocky shore because the Sea of Galilee doesn’t have much
sand. Rocky shore, He’s made it into a temple. He sees a boat and He goes out
and He sits in it and as He sits, He teaches. The boat becomes His altar. The
boat becomes His pulpit. He’s the make-do Messiah and that’s what He’s done
right now.
The gathering of God’s people in worship means that when
you get here it is one of those incredible, significant things that you’re here
with God’s people. Now I don’t whether those folks that listened on that day
worshipped or not because worship is more than instruction and worship is more
than simply listening. You see, worship is the Spirit’s initiation,
inspiration, infiltration and involvement. But the crowd grew, Jesus was moved
out, but eventually, eventually He was out there teaching.
Where do you meet God during the week? Picture your office,
picture your school, picture your playground, and picture the carpooling you do,
where do you meet God every week? You see the Bible says you’re the temple.
Paul puts it this way; you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. That means that
any place during the week you can in fact turn it into a temple if you will be
there.
Jesus says after the people are gone, “Simon, I want you to
sail out in the deep and put your nets in.” Now Simon has fished all night
long. Verse four, “When he had finished speaking He said to Simon, put out into
the deep water and let down the nets for a catch and Simon said, Master, we
worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything, but because you say so I will
let down the nets.” It’s very hard for Simon Peter to get into the spirit of
worship right here. I don’t blame him. Not a little bit! Now let’s be honest,
doesn’t worship often begin with a step called reluctance to get there. I mean,
did every one of you just say whoopees when you got into your car this morning?
One of our fine mothers said, you know, the hardest part of Sunday is getting
there. She said, the kids are sleepy and they’re crabby and they’re arguing
with one another. When we get there it’s all worth it and they learn and
worship matters so much to us, but getting up and going…
Simon Peter says, Lord, now you know about wood, you’re a
carpenter. I’m a fisherman, I know about fish and there are days they’ ain’t
biting. I’ve been out there all night, I’ve had no breakfast, I’ve had no sleep
and you’re telling me you want me to go out right where I’ve been, put my net in
the water? And Simon Peter I think didn’t get an answer to that. I think the
Lord did what I’ve watched my wife do on occasion with merchants. When you
don’t get what you want just stand there long enough and pretty soon it will
happen. I’ve noticed that also works with husbands every once in a while. When
the Lord just stood there, finally Simon Peter, okay. Put up the sail, out to
the middle, let’s down the net and the fish they are so many, so many fish they
have to call the other boat to help them.
You know what, you know what Simon Peter’s problem was?
It’s my problem, it’s your problem, it’s everybody’s problem who is a believer.
Non-believers don’t even worry about this…it’s forgetting to believe that God
can do it. It’s forgetting to believe that God has a way of moving into
situations we never could believe He could move into and make a change. That
reluctance has changed and Simon Peter in verse 8 says, “When Simon Peter saw
this he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.”
Now it’s good to get on your knees just about anytime
before the Lord, but that’s not what it says. It doesn’t say, Simon Peter got
on his knees and prayed. It says, Simon Peter got down and grabbed hold of the
knees of the Savior. He needed the Lord and he knew it. And he knew that he
was a sinner and he knew that the Lord had blessed his life even though he was a
sinner and he confesses his sin, he grabs hold of the Lord Jesus and the change
begins to happen.
I remember at a south wide encampment, I was in my 20’s, I
was a sponsor for a group of collegians, University students. On Saturday
night, those guys decided that they would have the world’s greatest pillow
fight. It’s Saturday night and they started at about midnight. Now, I’m on the
top of one of the bunk beds. Now that in itself tells you something and they
fought, and they fought and they got over me and they fought and you say to me,
why didn’t you stop them? I wasn’t any older than they are, most of them, and
besides that, at my age then I had the authority of a wet noodle. You just don’t
do it, you can shout, and anyway…they went on with it. Finally I pulled the
covers over my head and prayed for mercy.
The dawn came – trying to get those guys out and to get
them into church, whew that was a job! They went on and I said to myself,
nobody’s going to notice whether you’re there or not and then I got to feeling
guilty and I got to feeling duty. Worship and duty, they don’t really go
together. Some things don’t go with duty, it’s a 25th anniversary
and a husband brings home 25 roses to his wife and she is just ecstatic and he
says, oh it was nothing, just my duty. How do you think she’s going to respond
to that? I mean, duty doesn’t fit 25 roses, right? Okay, duty and worship
don’t go together. Duty can get you here, but once you’re here, wow! And on
that day at that south wide encampment, I remember climbing the steps and
getting into the farthest pew in the balcony that I could find thinking maybe I
could sleep through the service.
Let me tell you something, that service changed my life.
The Lord was there in such an incredible way. I wept, I laughed, I prayed, I
confessed, and when it was over I just sat there I couldn’t leave, it was such
an incredible moment for me and God had somehow or another chosen that time,
maybe my defenses were down, who knows? But God chose that time. I looked
around that day when the service was over and I wasn’t the only one. There were
people all over that huge auditorium that were just sitting there. They were
weeping, they were praising, God was there. Worship happened! And friends, I
have often thought to myself what if I hadn’t gone to that worship service?
It may start with reluctance, but sooner or later the
Lord’s going to say, let the net down. And you say….let the net down! And then
let the Lord take over! That’s what were here today for…to let the Lord take
over.
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