INTRODUCTION:<\/p>\n
A. Much of the change being promoted among the Lord’s church today is centered around worship<\/p>\n
1. These changes include church music, lifting up hands, hand-clapping, drama, female leadership, observing religious holidays, dedicating babies, the Lord’s Supper, Sunday night cluster groups, children’s worship, preaching style and worship environment.<\/p>\n
2. Each of these items will be addressed in other lessons<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
B. One can see that a primary objective of the change agents is to renovate and restructure the worship practices of the church<\/p>\n
DISCUSSION:<\/p>\n
A. What does the Bible say regarding acceptable worship?<\/p>\n
1. The New Testament begins and ends with worship<\/p>\n
a. Matthew 4:10<\/p>\n
b. Revelation 22:9<\/p>\n
2. At least four kinds of worship are alluded to in the New Testament<\/p>\n
a. Ignorant worship (Acts 17:23)<\/p>\n
b. Vain worship (Mat. 15:9)<\/p>\n
c. Will worship (Col. 2:23)<\/p>\n
d. Spiritual worship (Jn. 4:24)<\/p>\n
3. Inherent in each of these kinds of worship is authority<\/p>\n
a. Worship is either right or wrong depending on God’s will — the only right worship is authorized by God<\/p>\n
b. Jesus emphasized this John 4:23-24<\/p>\n
4. Correct worship possesses the:<\/p>\n
a. Proper audience — God<\/p>\n
1) True worshipers worship God<\/p>\n
2) Ephesians 5:19-20<\/p>\n
b. Proper attitude — in spirit<\/p>\n
1) Be mentally and emotionally involved<\/p>\n
2) Ephesians 5:19 — in your heart<\/p>\n
3) Psalm 122:1<\/p>\n
4) Worshiping in spirit takes real effort — unfortunately, the current climate in the church tends to treat worship as a time of entertaining the worshiper and catering to the worshiper’s wants<\/p>\n
5) As a result many worshipers have lost the deep, reverent mindset to please God and not self<\/p>\n
6) This lax attitude is especially evident in the change that has come over many congregations with regard to dress<\/p>\n
a) Much of the casual clothing worn in the local church assemblies is a direct manifestation of a casual attitude toward worship<\/p>\n
b) Worshipers are wearing casual clothing that they would not think of wearing for a wedding, a funeral, or even jury duty<\/p>\n
c) Dress unquestionably reflects attitude and can also create attitude — Just ask the military.<\/p>\n
c. Proper actions — in truth<\/p>\n
1) Worship must be done:<\/p>\n
a) Decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40)<\/p>\n
b) Acceptably (Heb. 12:28)<\/p>\n
2) The current assault on worship includes an attempt to dodge the clear import of the expression “in truth”<\/p>\n
3) Some are falsely saying that “in truth” in simply a Hebraism meaning to worship sincerely and devotedly — But let’s notice<\/p>\n
B. God’s View on the Matter of Truth<\/p>\n
1. God has always required essentially two facets of response to His will: the right action with the right attitude<\/p>\n
a. John 4:24<\/p>\n
b. Joshua 24:14<\/p>\n
c. Ecclesiastes 12:13<\/p>\n
d. Acts 10:35<\/p>\n
e. Deuteronomy 10:12-13<\/p>\n
f. Romans 1:9<\/p>\n
2. To emphasize on dimension of obedience over another is to hamper one’s acceptance by God<\/p>\n
3. God has not changed in His insistence upon man’s loving obedience to His instructions<\/p>\n
a. John 14:15<\/p>\n
b. John 15:14<\/p>\n
c. 1 John 5:3<\/p>\n
4. The Psalmist understood that God’s truth consisted of God’s written word<\/p>\n
a. Psalm 119:30, 43, 142, 151, 160<\/p>\n
b. Jesus taught the same thing<\/p>\n
1) John 17:17<\/p>\n
2) John 12:47-48<\/p>\n
5. Worshiping God “in truth” is equivalent to “doing truth,” which entails “deeds” or external actions which are prescribed by God<\/p>\n
C. Current Worship Tendencies<\/p>\n
1. Some churches of Christ are operating on the basis of inappropriate, unbiblical objectives and goals in worship<\/p>\n
a. Some churches have “worship committees” or “praise teams” who apparently have no clue as what their real responsibility is: to plan and structure worship so that the focus is on God — not the worshiper<\/p>\n
b. In keeping with the tone and tenor of our entertainment crazed culture, some in the church feel that worship ought to be entertaining<\/p>\n
c. Can’t we see that entertaining ourselves, satisfying our own needs, reviving our interest to escape our boredom, and attempting to attract others with these man made lure — are all simply unbiblical, cheap, inferior substitutes for simple, meaningful, spiritual worship?<\/p>\n
2. Instead of attempting to renovate worship for our own benefit, what we need to do is cultivate our appetites for pure, New Testament worship<\/p>\n
a. We need to stick with the simple worship behaviors dictated in Scripture<\/p>\n
b. We need to learn to like them because they are good for us<\/p>\n
c. If we resist them, and look for new and exciting ways to worship, we are showing a childhood rebellion — this is will worship (Col. 2:23)<\/p>\n
3. If worship has become boring and unmeaningful to a member, so much so, that he feels the need to change churches or liven up the worship assembly with theatrics, he has a spiritual, internal problem — a heart problem<\/p>\n
a. Repetitiveness and sameness are not inherently bad.<\/p>\n
b. God had enjoined repetition and lack of change in many areas and expects us to keep it that way<\/p>\n
c. Your mate expects the same!<\/p>\n
1) Shame on the man who puts away the wife of his youth because she is getting old and she’s the same women he married 20 or thirty years ago.<\/p>\n
2) Likewise, shame on the Christian who puts away the simply worship of the New Testament church because it is the same old things<\/p>\n
d. Just because an action is the same and predictable, that action need not necessarily be boring — that depends on the attitude of the individual<\/p>\n
e. Manipulating external gadgets and gimmickry will not revive a genuine, heartfelt attitude of worship<\/p>\n
CONCLUSION:<\/p>\n
A. Worship has come under attack by the change agents<\/p>\n
B. We must not fall prey to these voices who wish to resist or soften the instructions of God<\/p>\n
C. May God help us to worship Him in accordance with His revealed will!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INTRODUCTION: A. Much of the change being promoted among the Lord’s church today is centered around worship 1. These changes include church music, lifting up hands, hand-clapping, drama, female leadership, observing religious holidays, dedicating babies, the Lord’s Supper, Sunday night cluster groups, children’s worship, preaching style and worship environment. 2. Each of these items will … Continue reading “The Change Movement – The Assault on Worship – Bible Outlines”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}