What is Worship? “Worship is the response of grateful and humble people to the living God where submission, sacrificial service, praise, profession, testimony and gratitude are freely expressed in innumerable ways.” Lee Campbell PhD “Worship is our response to God’s Initiation” Tim Smith, Mars Hill Church, Seattle

We are created as worshippers to worship God. There is something inside us that wants to place value on things. We want to say “this is good” or “this is bad.” We assign weight and worth to almost everything we come in contact with. This is not born out of some kind of evolutionary process, this is something deeper something spiritual, something beyond all that. This is the reason we were created, to worship God. The fall has perverted our response to God though, and we place the highest value on other things.

Our sports teams, Our music Our job, our performance Our bodies Nature Our minds Our human reasoning Our desires Our feelings/experience Our doctrine Worship itself

We worship God when we sacrifice the worship of these things. When we offer up ourselves to him, we offer up everything we have.

The quintessential verse on worship is probably Romans 12:1-2.

Romans 12:1-2 1And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

Worshiping means giving our bodies up as sacrifices to Him. What’s more interesting is the part right before that. You may think, “Wait a second! That’s the first verse in chapter 12.” But I truly believe that Paul was in a continuous thought from Chapter 11 to 12, remember chapter and verse distinctions didn’t come until much later. Anyway, let’s read some of chapter 11.

Romans 11:33-36 33Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! 34For who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who knows enough to be his counselor? 35And who could ever give him so much that he would have to pay it back? 36For everything comes from him; everything exists by his power and is intended for his glory. To him be glory evermore. Amen.

And let’s go back and read that verse in Romans 12 1And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept.

The fact that we are supposed to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices is because we have a God who is so great we can’t understand him!

How’s that for a theology of worship? When is the last time you used that to tell people about your faith?

You know in the 1st Century the Greeks understood this. They had gods for everything and even for the “unknown God.”

Paul uses this to witness to them in Athens.

Acts 17 22So Paul, standing before the Council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious, 23for as I was walking along I saw your many altars. And one of them had this inscription on it—’To an Unknown God.’ You have been worshiping him without knowing who he is, and now I wish to tell you about him.

24″He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, 25and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need there is. 26From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand which should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

We are worshiping the Great One! We worship a God we can somewhat know. But he is a God we also worship because we can’t completely understand him. We are worshiping the Creator.

God existed as three in one before the creation of the world— (Genesis) Father creating, using the Son to create (John). Spirit hovering over, indwelling.

Genesis 1:1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. 3Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4And God saw that it was good.

John 1:1 In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t make. 4Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. 5The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

6God sent John the Baptist 7to tell everyone about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8John himself was not the light; he was only a witness to the light. 9The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world.

So the Father and Son are there creating, the Spirit is indwelling in the process. The uncaused cause, the triune God is creating out of nothing. That is beyond us. That is a reason for worship.

When we look at God’s plan of salvation we see another reason to worship. We see the Son submitting his will to the father to sacrifice his life for us. If God does that for us, can’t we give him our lives?

I can’t give you specifics about what it means for you to worship God. John the Baptist was worshiping God when he preached about the coming of Christ. Paul worshiped God when he was content to be in prison. Noah was worshiping God when he built a boat even though he was being mocked by everyone around him. You worship God when you respond in a proper way to God’s initiation. This might mean that you respond gracefully, when you are treated unfairly. It may mean that you raise your hands in praise here at Riverview because you’ve seen God work in your life. How Does Music Fit Into Worship?

Did you know that it’s not a biblical mandate to have music in our services? We have tons of freedom to have our services in many different ways. The cool thing is that we do have the freedom to use music, which is one of the most powerful gifts that God has given us.

Music fits into our corporate response to God. We as a community are singing prayers to God together. We are telling him that we love him not just individually, but together as a community that has seen him work. This has been a tradition since the Old Testament times up until now.

So what is Worship Music supposed to sound like? We have a folk band, a post-hardcore band, acoustic set ups. Which one is the best? What should worship look like?

Let’s take a look at the history of worship music in the Church.

History of Worship Music (thanks to Travis Swan)

313 AD – The Edict of Milan makes Christianity the formalized national religion.

373 AD – Ephriam from Syria writes songs, takes secular melodies and puts orthodox lyrics to them -there are still 400 hymns that he wrote that exist today -he wrote many of these hymns to combat heresy in the Church.

600’s – Gregory the 1st (Pope Gregory) compiles priests’ chants – Gregorian chants established, still used in Catholic mass today

900’s – Mass is in place as the accepted form of taking communion and worship

9th Century - Someone in Ireland writes Be Thou My Vision as a protest song to Viking oppression

1520’s - Martin Luther stands up to Rome (who had reduced worship to paying dues) and writes songs of personal experience in Christ

Later in the 1500’s - John Calvin says Luther’s hymns are too much about personal experience, begins to chant Psalms with no instrumentation

1680 – Bach is sick of congregational singing, so he composes instrumental and chorale music to be experienced in church

1707 – John Wesley brings personal hymns back in, writes a ton of hymns and adds instrumentation (Methodists).

Wesley brings hymns to America; colonists don’t like the English melodies, so they set the hymns to simple American tunes – each note only one note away from the other.

1890 - Dwight Moody’s soloist Ira Sankey creates a new song form – simple chorus, soloist that sings the verse – Gospel music begins

Same time - Fanny Crosby writes 9500 songs – Gospel song becomes song form of the day for the protestant church in America. Crosby was blind, but was never bitter about her disability. At the age of nine she wrote these verses about her condition:

Oh what a happy soul I am, Although I cannot see; I am resolved that in this world Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy, That other people don’t; To weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot, and I won’t.”

She later remarked, “It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me.”

She also once said, “When I get to Heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!”

Early 1960’s – Catholics after Vatican 2 use acoustic guitars in mass – “Folk Mass.”

1969 – Hippies - Jesus Movement in Southern California hits. Guitar enters the protestant church.

1980’s - Integrity music decided Jesus movement songs talked “about” God – and coined “Praise and Worship,” songs that talk “to” God.

1995-The move into Christian pop culture, and growing popularity of megachurches, was marked by the popularity of Hillsong, which in 2005 broke Australian records by selling more CDs on the week of the release of the CD than all other CDs in the pop market combined together.

1990’s- Passion Network introduces “pop rock” worship leaders such as Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman and David Crowder.

2000’s- Riverview Church begins Folk Worship and Post-Hardcore. Approval and complaints from church members abound.

Right now we have six different bands at Riverview, some of which have followed the modern sounds of Chris Tomlin and the Passion guys, some of the bands are completely different.

Why we started a folk band is because I met Brandon and Laura who play in a couple of folk bands together. It was natural for us to just start something new with their natural style because of who they are.

The same goes for the Difficulty (the indi band). This music is the style of music they listen to, it is the kind that they naturally play.

We are creating music that comes from who we are. We wouldn’t have a post-hardcore band, if we didn’t have the musicians who are naturally in their element there.

You may be uncomfortable with the harder music, or the folk music. You may just be waiting to get back to “real worship.” But as we look back on history, there have been so many ways to praise God and so many styles; we need to allow for flexibility and creativity, because this music is coming from who we are. We need to recognize, that many people love this and that the musicians are trying to help us make worship fresh by changing the elements.