5 minute read
Revival Talks
BY STEVE FRY
Pure Worship
Advertisement
When God begins to stir peoples’ hearts, they rise to a new passion to worship Him. But what often happens, over time, is that worship becomes more a means of encountering God’s Presence, than a declaration of God’s worthiness.
When we worship primarily to encounter God’s Presence, I suggest that we’re not worshiping purely.
WHAT OFTEN HAPPENS IS THIS:
When God moves by His Spirit, we experience God’s Presence in certain ways. We encounter God in a way that is life-changing! In fact, SO lifechanging that we develop a deep need to re-create that experience in order to feel that God is still with us.
And this is where our own hearts—and even Satan—try to deceive us. We experience God... and then very subtly our worship becomes a way to duplicate that experience. We develop a hidden agenda.
Hidden agendas that can corrupt our worship. Wanting an experience... And even wanting God's presence! This sounds right, and it partly IS right. It is right to want to experience God’s Presence, but that should not be the bottom-line motive for worship.
If ‘worship’ is about encountering God, then overtime I may measure my worship by my experience... and if I don’t ‘feel’ God at any given point, I may be discouraged. Or I might try to ‘work up worship’ in an effort to ‘feel’ God like I did before.
If worship is based on my need to encounter God, I will slowly lose my desire to worship God.
But REVELATION 4:11 says,
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.
Here is the core motivation to worship: We worship to declare that God is worthy! Regardless of what I may feel at any point, God is ALWAYS worthy... So I should ALWAYS be ready to worship.
Worship is not first about encountering God’s Presence; it is first about declaring His worth.
Remember our word ‘worship’ comes from the old English word ‘worth-ship’. Before anything else, worship is declaring God's worth.
Declaring He is worthy.
This is the core of worship; this is ground zero!
When worship is about declaring God’s worth, I can worship anytime no matter what I feel; worship isn’t’ about my experience. When I gather with others to worship I don’t have to wait for the 3rd or 4th song in the set to start ‘feeling’ God’s presence. I can enter into worship at the downbeat of the first song!
When we get that worship is about acknowledging that God already is the ultimate value, there is no need to "tune-up" to worship. Worship leaders don’t need to coax people to worship. We don’t need a ‘psychological approach’ to worship where we sing two up songs to help people get focused, then move into reflective songs to ‘really worship.’
Worship isn’t about my experience. It is about God’s worth!
Believe it or not worship to experience His Presence can be me-centered! Feeling that we haven’t worshiped until we feel His Presence.
But when we drop our agenda to ‘feel God’s Presence’ and worship JUST because He is worthy, not only is our worship purer, we will better steward revival.
Real Revival
We know we need a spiritual awakening. We have prayed for revival. But what is that to look like in the days ahead? And how are we as the people of God to prepare?
The prophet Haggai foretold that God would shake all nations... and fill His house with glory [Haggai 2:7]. Though initially fulfilled when Christ Jesus came to earth, this prophecy still echoes to our present day. God still shakes all nations, still manifests His glory.
Ah, that’s what we need! More glory! More of His Presence!
Maybe not. Of course, I believe that we need more of His glory and Presence, but shouldn’t our focus be not just ‘more glory’ but ‘more glorifying’?
More of what it means to ‘glorify Christ’?
We need to humbly come before The Lord and question some of our assumptions. Are we seeking the right things and asking the right questions? We pray for revival—and we should—but shouldn’t the first question be “Are we glorifying Jesus?”
Formulas teach transactional faith: We do this, and God will do that.
In His prayer in JOHN 17, Jesus sums up three years of ministry:
Father, I have glorified your name!
This was core for Jesus!
We pray for a manifestation of God’s glory—and what we mean, often, is a greater sense of His Presence. But the glory of God is more than a greater sense of His Presence. It is the urgent motivation—compulsion, if you will—to glorify God.
He comes to drench us with His presence in order to awaken us to our urgent need to glorify Him.
If we really wanted God’s glory, our number one passion would be that the character of Jesus would be seen in everything we do.
WE WANT REVIVAL—
do we just as much want unity with those believers who think differently than us?
WE WANT REVIVAL—
do we want to be faithful to Christian community as much as we want ‘individual encounter’ with God?
WE WANT REVIVAL—
do we want it because we want a personal spiritual buzz? Or to be set afire with fresh passion for people far away from God?
WE WANT REVIVAL—
is it because we seek reassurance that God’s ‘still there’? Or do we want renewed vigor to demonstrate Christ’s character?
These days, I think I’d rather pray...
That my heart would be turned to all of God’s people That I would be faithful to walk out my Christianity in committed long-term relationships with other believers; That I would have enough passion for people far away from God that I would make time to fellowship with them; That I would have just as much zeal to be conformed to Christ’s image as I would to encounter God’s Presence. That I would love God enough to let His Spirit make me like Jesus!
Ah! Maybe that is revival!
STEVE FRY
Steve Fry serves as Senior Pastor of The Gate Community Church, located in Franklin, Tennessee and is the President of Messenger Fellowship. Steve received his Masters Degree in Theology from Wesley Institute, a member college of the Sydney College of Divinity.
MUSIC.
WORSHIP RADAR 26
SONGWRITING TIPS 27
