WORSHIP FULLY
           Over the past few months, I have been talking to you about our Advent sermon series that is influenced by a movement called the “Advent Conspiracy”. As I got to thinking, I don’t know if I’ve done a good job at explaining what exactly this is, or what we are going to be exploring during this season of waiting for Christ’s birth. As we begin, let me see if I can offer a further explanation. First, though, a word about what the Advent Conspiracy is NOT: it is not solely about a special offering—recall, if you will, that a few months ago I challenged you this year to buy one less gift, and to bring what you would have spent on that gift to worship on December 18 and make a special offering, that would go to a designated mission project/field—neither is the Advent Conspiracy about simply remembering “Jesus is the reason for the season” or some other cutsie saying to evoke the Christian element of Christmas. What the Advent Conspiracy IS about is returning us to the heart of the Christmas story; stripping away the layers society has heaped upon Christmas and returning to the essence of the celebration and remembering God’s gift to us in Christ Jesus. Over these weeks of Advent, we are going to return to the essence of Christmas by allowing four words to guide our worship and message time.

           The first word for us to engage is WORSHIP. We CANNOT enter into Advent or Christmas without first striving to engage in passionate, authentic worship. Worship is at the heart of Christmas and the heart of the human relationship with God. But what exactly is worship? Is it singing, praying, reading Scripture, or any of those other things we do in “church”? NO! Those things are all ways in which we worship, but they are not, in and of themselves, worship. To get to the heart of what worship is, we must refer to Scripture. There are 254 or so references to worship in Scripture; 179 of those appear in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). We explored on those a few weeks back, Exodus 20: 1-4; a passage in which God demands that those who seek to be God’s people must worship God alone and not worship any idol or graven image or anything else constructed by human hands. The word we translate “worship” in this passage and the majority of the Hebrew Bible references to worship, is a Hebrew word that is pronounced ‘SHACHAH”; it means “to bow down in reverence or submission”. To “shachah” is to fall before God…especially spiritually, but, very often, physically as well. To worship, then, is to bow down in reverence to God with all that we are, acknowledging God’s holiness and worthiness. It is from this posture of body and soul that we praise, pray, and hear from God. It is a humbling act to worship, to “shachah”.

           With that in mind, hear again that passage from Exodus 20, (paraphrase) “I am the Lord your God. You shall worship me only. You shall not worship anything or anyone else “. Only God is worthy to be submitted to in such a humbling way. Only God is deserving of this kind of obedience and reverence. There is nothing else that is greater than God or deserves even the same kind of worship that we would offer to God! I want to point you to Acts 10, specifically verse 26, but the rest of the chapter in general. We have in this chapter the story of a man named Cornelius. Cornelius was a Roman soldier stationed in Caesarea; a Gentile by virtue of his status as a non-Jew. However, Cornelius was also a devout man of faith. In a vision, he was directed by God to pay a visit to the Peter, the apostle. Peter, being a God-fearing Jew, wanted nothing to do with this Gentile visitor at first. However, Peter invited Cornelius into Peter’s home and Cornelius fell at Peter’s feet and began to worship. Peter’s response was that no mortal was worthy to be addressed in such a way. Peter’s point was that, even though he had status as an apostle, he wasn’t worthy to be worshipped at all or greeted in the same manner as one would fall before God. The same is true for any person or thing of this world now. NOTHING is so worthy or revered as to be greeted as we might greet God!

           In short, worship is our response to who God is and our submission to God and the ways of God. Worship is ALL about God; when it becomes about us, at all, it ceases to be true worship. It is in this spirit that we are invited to enter the Advent season.

           I could probably stop right there…but I’m not going to! That’s because we need to say something more about our worship. We’ve just spent considerable time examining what exactly we are doing when we worship; now I want to turn our focus toward the extent to which our worship goes. If you glanced at the title of this message, you have an idea of where this is going. You see, we aren’t invited to worship half-heartedly, when we feel like it, or when it fits into our schedule. Instead, we are invited to worship FULLY. I don’t think I really need to provide a definition for that word, but I will—it means completely or entirely. I found another definition that I really like—“holding nothing back”. The invitation for us is to hold nothing back in our worship! Not only that, we are invited to make worship a part of our life outside of the hour (or so!) we are together on Sunday morning. Imagine that…worship being something that is, in many ways, an integral part of someone’s life.

           So how do we worship fully? How do we make worship a part of everyday life? Let’s take just a moment and consider what doesn’t “count” in worshipping fully. Fully worshipping doesn’t mean that we are at the building every time the doors are open-that could just equate to spending a lot of time at the church building. Fully worshipping doesn’t mean we get indignant when someone says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Instead, worshipping fully can take on a number of forms. The reality is that worship can take on an infinite number of forms. Remember that worship is anytime we submit ourselves to God? Here are a few suggestions, though.

           Worship together as often as you can. There is no substitute for communal worship; no substitute for worshipping with one another. During this time of year, we will have numerous opportunities to do this. Aside from Sunday morning, we have Christmas programs at Athens and Cantrall, as well as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities to share together in the magic and mystery of Christmas and together bow before God’s greatness.

           Worship by yourself. Set aside some time each day to intentionally allow God to speak to you. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to select an Advent devotional—something that will help guide your personal worship throughout this season. The Upper Room devotional is a great resource, as well as numerous other resources available online (if you have access to the Internet). You will notice in church newsletter the Scripture readings I’m going to be using for my Advent devotional. In addition, I’m going to be posting some daily reflections on my personal blog. Whatever you do, spend some time alone with God. Spend some time alone in worship and communing with God.

           Finally, remember that worship doesn’t have to be only prayer/Scripture/singing. Worship is also done through our acts of mercy and charity toward one another. Whenever we give of ourselves in the name of Jesus Christ to someone else, we are worshipping. It doesn’t matter if we are dropping some coins or bills in the Salvation Army bucket, if we are serving at a soup kitchen, or if we are doing something entirely different. What matters is that we are giving of ourselves in Christ’s name, and that, my friends, is worship.

           Worship is submitting to God in all that we do. Everything else we are going to talk about this Advent season revolves around worship…worship is at the core of Advent and the Christian life. Next week, we are going to talk about how worshipping fully and getting to the true heart of Christmas puts us at odds with the world around us. My challenge for you this week, though, is to, each day, worship as fully and completely as you can—not for my sake, but for the sake of your soul and for the glory of Christ, the gift we celebrate. Thanks be to God! AMEN.

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