Extravagant Worship
By way of quick review, I am using the word "grace" as an acronym in this teaching series to identify five values that are universal to the church. The "G" stands for "God's Presence" and our pursuit of Him. We talked about that in lessons 1 to 4. The "R" stands for "Restoration of Souls," and we talked about that in lessons 5 to 8. "A" stands for "Advancing God's Kingdom," and we talked about that in lessons 9 to 11. "C" stands for "Character Based Leadership," and we talked about that in lessons 12 to 14. The last letter, "E," stands for "Extravagant worship," and that is what we will talk about now.
What is worship? Worship is anything we do to give honor and glory to God. It is our giving of our love to our God. Worship is anything we do in our life to give honor to God. The word "worship" means the act of admiring, esteeming, honoring, magnifying, exhorting, respecting, and revering. It is man responding to God with awe and submission and respect. Worship is man responding to God with honor and respect. In its broadest context, worship is anything that we do to give honor to God.
We tend to think of worship in terms of music and singing, but it is much broader than that. Let me give you a few examples of other forms of worship. When you live a life of sacrifice every day as you are walking in righteousness and holiness, you are worshipping God. Just in your lifestyle you worship God. Giving can be worship when you give obediently and sacrificially. It is an act of worship because you are giving it to honor and glorify God. And a lifestyle of sacrificial prayer can be worship. Some times we meet early in the morning to pray and sometimes we meet late at night. You will see praying going on. There is a lifestyle of prayer, which is an act of worship.
Of course, extravagant praise is also part of worshipping God. We come together in songs and to worship God, giving Him a sacrifice of our hearts in extravagant praise! When God made us, He made us to do that. Look at Luke 19:38-40. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, all of His followers were praising Him. The Pharisees got upset and said that it wasn't right for them to praise Him like that. Jesus responded to that by saying, "I tell you that if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out!" (verse 40). Putting it into modern English what Jesus said was, "If these guys don't praise Me, the rocks will cry out!" All nature is geared toward worshipping the Creator. God put it within us.
Everybody worships something. God put it in us to worship something; everyone has their gods. God put that thing within us.
Corporate worship at church can be an extravagant expression of worship, and we are not to be ashamed of it. It's just who we are. It may feel a little different, but it is a part of who we are. God created us to worship Him.
Psalms 95:1-7 says, "Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care."
Something within you is crying out for this; something within you wants to worship. This is the cry that is within you. When you look around, you see the greatness of His creation and all that God has done. You see His handy-work. God designed you for this -- you are built to worship Him. He built you to be an extravagant worshipper.
Extravagant worship is God-focus, not man-focus. When we get together to worship, we corporately put our focus upon Him -- not us!
Sometimes someone may say, "I just didn't get anything out of church today." What does that mean? As a pastor, I have a response to that: Let me give you a biblical principle about giving and receiving. Luke 6:38 says, "Give and it shall be given unto you, good measures pressed down, shaken together, running into your lap, for by your standard of measure it will be measured back to you." This is a biblical principle that says as you give you will receive. So when you say, "I didn't get anything out of church today," what does that mean in terms of what you had put into it? If you give unto the Lord in the midst of worship, do you think you may receive? Those who did not get anything out of the service did not put anything in; because when you give something, you will receive.
There is a mentality people have when they come to church. Some people go to church to receive, others to be entertained, and others come to be fed. In each of these, there is a basic thinking that they are the center of this: "This is for me." Well, it is not for you -- it is for Him! The reciprocal effect comes in play that whenever you give unto Him, it comes back to you. So, when you give in church, you are going to receive. So when you say, "I didn't get anything out of church today," I am worried that the day will come when God will also say, "I didn't get anything out of church today." Why? Because the odds are that you didn't give anything.
Our worship is not to be man-focused; it is to be God-focused. The simple fact is that entertainment doesn't work well in the house of God. I am not against special music, but it is kind of hard for true worshipppers to sit back and watch somebody do something and not get involved with worship. We don't have much by way of solos or special numbers in our church service because we don't want anything to take away our attention from God. We don't want to give attention to singers, musicians, and leaders. We just want to give Glory to God -- not to man. It is all for Him.
The object of our worship is pursuing intimacy with our Lord. He is our Abba Father; He is our Daddy, as the word of God describes it. Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us therefore draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need." The objective of worship is to draw near to God; it is eventually to get into the Holy of Holies.
The temple has a basic pattern. We see it in the tabernacle that Moses built and in the temple that Solomon built. It had three compartments: we have the outer court where everybody comes, the inner court or "Holy Place" (not everyone comes in here), and there is the Holy of Holies, a small compartment. This is where God is. Now we don't have a physical temple any more. We are a spiritual temple, so we can enter into that inner chamber where God is. Our objective in corporate worship is to get you to enter into the Holy of Holies. We can enter into this place called the Holy of Holies, so our objective is to get you from the outer court into the inner court, and then into the Holy of Holies. It is a challenge.
What do you bring to church on Sunday? Do you bring all of your problems and all of your issues and all your struggles? If so, when you enter into church, you have to sift through it -- the fight you had in the car, etc. If you have all that junk with you, then when you get in the church, you can't rush right into the Holy of Holies. You have to sift through some things. We don't just jump right into the Holy of Holies. But the goal of corporate worship in the service is to take you there step by step. You put down all of those things and you begin to focus on God. And you begin to draw near to Him, to approach Him, to move from the outer court into the inner count and finally into the Holy of Holies.
Psalm 100 says to enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. That means that we begin to move from whatever distraction we came in with to the place of where God is. Most of the songs we sing at the beginning of a service are outer courts songs. The songs we sing get us ready to go into the inner courts. We kind of step in and step out. The worship part of the service is trying to get you in the inner court. This is the place we want to get you, where it is just you and Daddy. When we get together in worship we don't want to stay in the outer court. Looking at songs: you will have inner court songs, outer court songs, and Holy of Holies songs. Songs about God -- rather than to Him -- these are all outer courts songs. Even in the hymn book there are few inner-court songs, because they are singing about God rather than to Him. Inner Court songs are songs like, "I Love You Lord," where our objective is to get into intimacy with the Lord. The ultimate purpose of worship is intimacy with God.
Moving A Church Into Extravagant Worship
I would like to talk about how we have evolved in our worship in my own church. A lot of our evolution came fourteen years ago when they called this wild renegade pastor (e.g., me). Before I came, worship used to be just a couple of hymns before the announcements and sermon. Now our worship is the main event of our service, where we put our focus on God and invite His presence. Our worship usually lasts for an hour, and as we linger before God and draw close to Him, He frequently shows up in very tangible ways to meet with His children.
How did we get from there to here in our chruch? We did it thorugh a process over time, as we began to intentionally focus on worshipping God. (This same process can be done in any church. The logistics may look a bit different in any given church, but the basic process is the same.) We have to look at how God made and designed us. He designed us to worship Him, and we find a true fulfillment when we are doing that on a regular basis.
When my current church called me about coming here, they didn't ask me about my worship and praise background. It was not important to them; it wasn't their focus. They didn't listen to any of my worship services. Nobody asked me about my opinions of worship or praise. Nobody even attempted to visit me at Washington State where I was pastoring when they called me. If someone had gone there, they would have discovered my praise and worship style. God put that in me from the very beginning -- I grew up singing in the choir. In the part of the country I grew up in, the best singers were not in the secular world, but in the church.
If you look at some of the secular singers today who are very popular -- both old and young -- you will find that they had their beginning in the church. They developed their skills in the church.
I went through a lot of extensive vocal training in high school. I was in choir and I played football. It wasn't "cool" for football guys to be in the choir, but singing was a part of my passion. I actually went to the different contest and competition for vocals, choir, and solos, quartets, and things of that nature, and won awards in the regional and state competitions. I received the highest awards for vocal solo competition. I have the medals in a box somewhere in my attic -- maybe I should break them out and stick them in my office one day. No, I don't think so, because the goal of worship is to focus on God, not on man's accomplishments.
Singing has been a part of who I am, it's in my design. I have led worship for thirty years. I usually lead worship in the church services. I have led worship in every church I have been a part of. In my previous church, I led worship in the early service every Sunday, because it is a part of who I am. I have been music director and choir director. At one point I thought that God was bringing me into the music realm, but I found out it was into the preaching realm.
Worship has been a part of me. It is ingrained in me. Everywhere I have gone I have always had a song going around in my head. So, fourteen years ago when I came to my current church, we had a very traditional form of worship. That was what this church knew; it was the box that this church was accustomed to. So I went out and bought in a new box -- a black box. I spent about $4,000 and brought it to church and gave it to them. I bought it with my personal money to rein the mentality of "what do we need this for?" I bought a keyboard and a speaker. And on Wednesday nights I started to lead worship on that keyboard.
The church members looked at me and said, "What is that? I said, "We are going to worship with it." "And what are we going to do with it?" I led worship with this keyboard. It was one of those ones where you could program whole songs in and it would play them even if you did not know how to play a keyboard. So I pushed the button and it started, and I pushed the button and it stopped. At first we were only doing it on Wednesday nights, but after a while we decided that we would do it on Sunday morning.
We started using that little programmed keyboard in our Sunday morning service -- what a concept to use the box on Sunday morning! In 1991, we started a diverse monthly hour of worship and we called it "Prepare The House." We met on Saturday nights from 5 to 6 pm for one hour to spend time in worship. What were we doing? We were getting people use to coming into the Holy of Holies, which is to encounter God.
Remember that the goal of worship is to encounter God. If you have been in the church for a long period of time, sometimes you have to go through a process of unlearning in order to encounter God. You have to unlearn bad worship habits before you can learn good ones. You have to go through a process of unlearning so that you can learn. That is what we did in our church. We worshipped once a month and pretty soon that one hour wasn't long enough. So we moved it to Friday nights, changed the name of it to "Station Break," and increased it to two to three hours. And you know what? We still have monthly Station Breaks in our church to this day.
A couple of years ago, the youth started a couple of nights of worship. Today, they continue to have a night of worship each month. So, our congregation has two nights of worship each month. We don't do anything else in that service, we just worship God and draw close to Him.
Let me talk about the significance of worship and monthly worship services. We have the Sunday Morning Worship Service, a Tuesday night recovery program, Alpha, Men's Breakfast, Ladies Fellowship; we have all of these different things going on. If I were to categorize or prioritize every event we hold in a month, worship would be at the very top of the list. It is the most important thing that we do as church in a given month. Why? It is the only thing that we do that is not self-serving -- it is a sacrifice to Him. There is no preaching, no teaching, no passing of an offering. We have several different things going on in the church, but worship is my highest priority. Worship is the only thing we do that is not self-serving. We don't try to see how many people we can get into the house because that is not what it is all about.
Worship is the most important thing I'm involved in during the month. And there has to be something of tremendous importance for me to miss worship. Our monthly worship services are very important to me. Let me give you an illustration of just how important worship is to me. This summer my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and we took a few days off to spend an extended time together without the boys. We love our boys, but you understand, there are times when a couple needs special time for themselves. One of the couples in the church offered us their time-share in Cape Cod. We have three boys that we love dearly, but we wanted to spend some time alone together.
We could have left on Friday, but our monthly worship service is on Friday Night. So we put off our vacation off a day, so that we wouldn't miss Friday night. Worship is so important to me that if I had a choice between missing the Sunday morning service or Friday night worship, I would miss Sunday morning. Let me tell you why.
A few years ago, I was discouraged by the low attendance at our monthly worship services, and I began asking God if I should cancel them. God spoke and told me that the Revival will flow from the worshippers. He said, "They are the ones I can trust. They are the ones whose agenda is Me. I can trust them with My power and anointing. They are coming close to Me." God also told me when I look for leaders, look for the worshippers. They are the Moses' and Joshuas. When God chose people, He chose worshippers. Moses was a man who sought after God, and He also chose Joshua as Moses' successor. He chose Moses who sought after the presence of God, and Joshua because Joshua longed for the presence of the Lord, to move into the presence of God.
So when I ask God, who are the leaders of the Revival? Who are the people who have a passion for God? His answer is that they are the ones who have been working all day, and still come out on Friday nights to worship. They say, "I have been working all week, but I want to soak in the presence of God. This is my passion, and you can tell it, it kind of rises up in me. What can I say?"
Out of our time of worship on Friday nights, it just spills over into Sunday morning. It is normal for us, because we come to embrace God. I have friends and family who will come and visit the church and say that our worship is a little bit different for them. But this type of purposeful and extravagant and extended worship has become normal for us. We come to church to engage God. We worship for about an hour on Sunday morning before I preach. It is easier to preach when the glory of God is in the house. It is the residue of His presence and it is wonderful.
How To Become A Worshipper
Freedom or liberty are a part of extravagant worship. We need to be free before God. When I am worshipping the Lord, I'm free from condemnation, free from the fear of judgment of man. II Cor 3:17 tells us, "Now the Lord is a Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." There is freedom. Liberty basically says that when I come into this house and I worship the Lord, I am not coming for man. I come to worship God (not man), therefore I can't allow the fear of man to determine how I worship God.
Let's talk about one aspect of worship: raising our hands to God. Some people don't feel comfortable raising their hands. The word of God says, "Lift your hands unto the Lord." It didn't add, "...if you feel like it." So we should all be free to lift our hands to the Lord in worship. Unfortunately, Some people are concerned about what the person sitting next to them is going to think about them if they raise their hands. Who cares? That is the fear of man. Some of you may be concerned that you brought somebody to the church with you, and they are going to think that you are strange. Okay, be a little strange, it is okay. We can't allow people with their problems and their issues or their judgment determine how we worship God.
Liberty says this: "I'm going to give people freedom to worship God. If they want to stand, then they stand. If they want to sit, then they sit. If they want to dance, let them dance. If they want to kneel, then let them kneel. If they want to shout, then let them shout -- as long as what they do is not distracting to the whole house and pulling the others out of worship. There are times when we have to tap someone on the shoulder. I look at them and say this is "flesh." When someone is distracting, we pull them to the side. For instance, if someone is dancing and stepping on people and knocking over everyone, then we stop them. That is very rare, but it does happen on occasion. There is freedom in the house to worship, unless it is messing with everyone else.
Praise has its protestors: the devil doesn't like it, your mind doesn't understand it because it is in the spirit realm, and your flesh may be uneasy with it. Those are the three primary categories that are uneasy and protest praise (the devil, our mind and our flesh). God wants to push past that and begin to bring freedom to the soul.
Another important characteristic of extravagant worship is that it will take on the various Biblical expressions. If the Bible talks about it, then it is ok to do in worship in the service. What are the biblical expressions of worship? Look in the book of Psalms, what's there about worship? There is quite a bit, including clapping, tambourines, dancing, shouting, raising your hands, singing, kneeling, being still, playing instruments, laying prostrate (on one's face on the floor). All of that is in the book. If you want to know what is appropriate in worship, then get familiar with the Book. Read the book of Psalms because it is full of expressions of worship. If you want to know what is appropriate in worship, read your Bible.
God has called all of us to be extravagant worshippers! What do you need to do to become a worshipper?
First, you need to pursue every opportunity to engage in public worship. The reason for public worship is so that you can pursue a lifestyle of private worship, not just for the sake of public worship itself. A lot of people can engage in public worship, but that is where it stops. My question is: What are you like when you and God get together? What about private time? Do you and God get together -- do you all spend time together? What do you do when it is just you and God? When you are alone with God, you don't have to worry about the fear of man. You can do whatever you want and nobody is going to look at you, except maybe the angels. You can dance all you want.
You can always tell an extravagant worshipper, not only will they worship corporately, they will also worship and cut loose with God in their private time. Some of the best worship times I have are not in church services, and they are not with anybody else, except me and God. That is the place where we want every believer to get to. We want you to be an extravagant worshipper at church, and also when you are alone with God, when nobody is looking.
We should pursue excellence (but not performance) in worship. I think we need to be the best we can be while worshipping God; this is the objective. We are not looking for perfect people, perfect singers with perfect voices. If God wanted all of us to be singers, then He could have given us all voices. God does not require us to be great singers, but anything that you do, you need to do your best. God is looking at our hearts. When it comes to singing unto the Lord, do your best.
Let me give you a few pointers, a mini voice lesson for those of you who have never had it. (The only reason I'm doing it is so that you can improve the way you worship.) Many of you really have good voices. Many of you think that you are tone deaf, but you are not. If you work at it, a lot of things could be developed. God gave us these vocal chords, which are just a set of muscles, but we need to train our voices. If you play tennis, do you spend time training? Do we spend time training and developing our muscles? If you are an athlete, you spend time training and developing your muscles. Of course you do; the answer is yes. Well, if this is a set of muscles, then they need to be trained. If Sunday morning is the only time you train your voice, then you need to work on it and develop it.
The best thing that many of you can do is consider your posture. Look at your design: God gave you vocal chords and a diaphragm. Don't breathe from your chest, but from your diaphragm. Standing is the best posture; if you are sitting, then lean back, because the more air you have, the stronger your voice will be. The more air you have, the better you will be. Some of you would sound so much better if you would just change your posture. You want to minimize the air flow coming through your vocal chords, which means you don't want to expel all of your air at once.
Have you heard someone sang and hold a note for a long time? What's going on there? There is a minimum amount of air flowing through the vocal chords, thus giving you more control. Some of you just need to practice this stuff -- just minimize the amount of air and control it. God gave you a sounding board in your body to help resonant sounds in your chest. Basically, your vibration flows in and out of it. The nasal cavity is not the place for resonation of your singing, the chest is. How do you know if you are using your nasal cavity or your nose? Next time you sing, hold your nose. The nasal cavity is not the place to resonate and you don't want to sound like you are in the shower.
Another thing you can do is record yourself and listen to it. I didn't say play it for the family or the neighbors, but listen to yourself! A lot of times you go flat and you don't know you went flat. But when you listen to yourself, you will know when you go flat.
The last thing I will say is: whenever you sing, pronounce your words like when you talk. A lot of times people start pronouncing their words differently when they sing. Sing the way you talk. You will pick that up when you listen to yourself, when you record yourself.
Don't try to imitate others. Be who you are and use your voice. God gave you a voice. Sing like you would speak. This will make all the difference in the world. You will pick this up when you record yourself. Sing like you would speak. Okay, so now you have had a mini voice lesson.
The next time you worship, celebrate the Lord and experience what we have been talking about. Make exalting Him your primary objective. Start with the outer court, but don't stay there. Move into the inner court and then move right in into the Holy of Holies. Enter into intimacy with our God as you worship. Focus your attention on Him and make it all about Him and not about you or what you desire to get out of it. Bless the Lord by worshipping, and I guarantee you that He will bless you back and reveal more of Himself to you.
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