Most of you will have heard my story – that I was in year 13 classics class when a girl turned to me out of the blue and invited me to youth group.  And I said yes.  That week I went with her to youth group.  It was just in someone’s living room at someone’s house.  I had no idea what to expect.   

I had grown up going to mass with my mum and gone to catholic high school for a few years but youth group was a brand new experience.  I was sharing at Soul Food, the Pak College Christian Group on Tuesday this week – shout out to Robin and the team there – they had a pizza lunch outreach and had over 160 people attend in the hall – how wild is that – I was sharing at soul food that mass was so boring that even the priest, the dude running the show – fell asleep.  That made me think that God was soooo boring and indifferent to everything. 

At youth group in the living room a guy picked up his guitar and said we are going to have worship now.  I had sung songs at mass.  I had sung songs at assembly at our catholic school.  But as the youth around me began to sing I knew something different was happening here.  In that moment as the people around me began to sing and lift their hands and close their eyes I knew that God was real and that He was there and near and that I could know Him, that I must know Him.

Before that moment I would have said I didn’t believe God was real.  In that moment I knew He was.

Worship is where we meet God.  Whether we’ve been a Christian 10 years, 27 years or not even there yet, worship is where we can see God and that can change our whole lives.

This morning in our Worship series – awaken the wonder – we’re talking about worship as a lifestyle.  We’re pulling back the veil on what worship is, how we make it real in our lives and how we can make it part of our intentional and unintentional rhythms of our day.

If you ask someone how they are or how they’re doing a very common response is I’m busy.  I’m busy.  I’m busy doing this and I’m busy doing that.  Traffic is crazy, school assessments are crazy, work is crazy, the kids are crazy, I am crazy. I’m tired and I’m overwhelmed. 

When it comes to talking about spiritual practices then there can be a block and push back because we’re busy, we think to ourselves – I don’t have time for that, you want me to add more to my life – I’m tired and stressed and it’s so overwhelming and busy already, I don’t have any more time.

The danger is if we don’t MAKE time we don’t actually do the time.  As humans we never drift into action.  We are wired and flawed to take the path of least resistance and to go with the flow.  We want to be spontaneous and it to feel natural not forced, not ritualistic, and not religious.  As humans we don’t like discipline.  And as Pentecostals, we especially don’t want to look religious.  It’s a relationship not religion, its presence not practical. 

But so often we ARE applying discipline in other areas of our lives and being intentional about other things – but we view discipline as a bad word when it comes to our relationship with God.

Creating a lifestyle of worship is different and not different to creating a new habit. 

Like creating a new habit we need to change aspects of how we spend our time and our behaviour.  Like creating a new habit there will be that uncomfortable stage where it might feel forced and unnatural and we forget and then we beat ourselves up or we’re experimenting and trying new ways to make the habit stick. 

Like creating a new habit we’re giving something up in order to gain something greater. 

If I asked you all to vote in a poll now about whether worshipping God was a good idea yes or no I would expect almost a 100% YES vote.  We know it’s the right thing to do and good for us – we know God is amazing and that we should be enamored with awe and that God should be the centre of our world and that the angels have been singing the same song for thousands of years holy holy holy but…. Am I right?   

It’s not like we’re not motivated – but our motivation hasn’t translated into action. 

Every choice for change has a price, but when we are motivated, it is easier to bear the inconvenience of action than the pain of remaining the same. We need cross a mental threshold that redefines our time, our energy, our resources and our resistance to change.

Creating a lifestyle of worship is DIFFERENT than creating a new habit because we’re not just talking about 10,000 steps, journaling every day, eating healthier, practicing guitar everyday, going to the gym 4 times a week, drinking 2 l of water, saving money for a trip to Europe or training to run a marathon.  These things are good and are positive for our life but worship and time with God is at the core what we were designed to do. Worship not only deepens our relationship with God but there are byproducts and benefits that bless our body, our mind, our heart, our soul, our relationships, our future, our wisdom, our brains, our health, our family.  

Everyone here worships.  We are all worshipping something.  As Christians we get to decide who are we worshipping?  As Christians we make it our life goal to reorientate our worship towards God.  As Christians we make it our purpose to know God, to be children of God, friends with God. 

We are created for relationship with God.  We are designed to worship.  And think about WHO we are worshipping.  God.  Who said let there be light and there was, who is near and personal and good, so good and wise and knows the secrets of the universe and the secrets of our hearts and invites us – not forces us – to be friends and have access to His peace, His presence and His power.   All of us here deep down are saying yes pick me pick me, we want that.  The key is to then make that devotion into a discipline and then you’re being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, doing the things Jesus did and being a disciple.

What an incredible invitation.  Worship is proportional to our view of God. If our everyday lives aren’t filled with wonder and awe and worship and  lived out obedience to His commands, maybe we need to examine who we believe Jesus to be.   Who are we really worshipping?

Having this perspective of WHY and WHO we worship is the difference between any normal habit changes we can be making.  There is nothing greater and more important than a relationship with our Creator. 

Romans 12:1  Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

The message version puts it so beautifully:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Then jumping into 1 Corinthians 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

These 2 passages show us that worship happens in all the 168 hours of our week, is more than just 2 hours of Sunday and is more than just singing and clapping and music.  In fact worship can happen in the most mundane ordinary parts of our lives – the eating and the drinking, the things we do everyday the things we maybe don’t even think about and just do on autopilot. 

Of all the things Paul could have chosen to highlight and say this can be worship, do this for the glory of God – he choses eating and drinking, not reading the bible, not volunteering at church, not being in a connect group, not praying, not giving, not prophesying or speaking in tongues, not fasting, not on missions…. Eating and drinking.  Ordinary things. 

This reframes worship.

The Greek word for worship in Romans 12:1 is latreia (lat-ri’-ah). It is the second most commonly used word to describe worship in the New Testament. And it means, “service.” A lifestyle of worship is not simply raising your hands at the pinnacle of your favorite worship song on Sunday.   In fact it’s not nailed down to a specific place or time or church at all.  It is a service. Paul is saying when we see what it cost Jesus to bring us from death to life, how could we do anything less than serve and worship him for the rest of our lives with all of our lives.

We offer worship as the outward action which reflects our inward devotion to God and what we offer as response is in agreement with the Word of God.   It’s not just singing praises to God, all day long, but it’s in the choices we make. 

We were made to know God and love him in response. That is worship.

Louie Giglio says it this way, “Worship is our response, both personally and corporately, to God—for who He is and what He has done, expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live.”

God reveals who He is—His love, grace, kindness, goodness, righteousness, holiness, justice, patience, and compassion and we respond.   With our life.  Not just the 2 hours on Sunday but with all 168 hours, in the holy moments and the hustling moments, in the motivated and the mundane, in the wonder and the work, in the intentional and the unintentional.

John Mark Comer (https://www.practicingtheway.org/book) is my favourite author and speaker at the moment.  If you are wanting some inspiration on following Jesus and some challenges on your spiritual growth, your spiritual rhythms then he is your guy. 

I discovered him last year when I was talking to someone about the whole thing of being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus and doing the things Jesus did and how that concept and mission was captivating my heart and mind.   They pointed me to John Mark’s books and podcasts and said this guy talks about that exact same thing.  I was like jinx! 

His latest book – not sponsored I promise – is called practicing the way – and is about creating intentional rhythms and practices that help us be with Jesus, become like Jesus and do the things Jesus did. 

In his podcasts he talks about how being a disciple isn’t something that happens on its own, much less passively. It’s a practice, and practice makes perfect, here as elsewhere. No one becomes an excellent pianist or mechanic or basketball player without a plan of action. The Holy Spirit produces saints not at random but by a rigorous regimen. These are the spiritual disciplines or, as Comer terms them, the practices of the Way of Jesus.

Worship is a spiritual practice.

Like creating a habit of 10000 steps or journaling every day or setting a goal for how much we can lift (we lift the name of Jesus am I right) it takes being intentional.

STRATEGY INTO SUCCESS

Like we habit hack ourselves to success in the gym, or success with healthy eating, or saving for something exciting or as adults something not exciting – having a strategy will set us up to win.  It can sound awkward saying we have to have a strategy for worship but our humanness hijacks us that we’re not drifting towards God naturally we have to make intentional choices and behaviours to follow Him.  If we don’t make time that time will be taken up by the drift.  By Netflix.  By scrolling.  By work.  By busyness.  By good things too.  Everything good or bad competes for that time. 

Build a strategy.  When.  What.  Where.   Are you a morning person – yes then do it then.  No, well maybe doing it then might be the best time too!   

When we plan to praise and plan to pray and even put a framework around what we do when we have that set time to worship and pray we’re combating the decision freeze that can try to derail us before we’ve already begun.   

I was at our local east Auckland ministers association meeting on Thursday and the guest speaker, a local pastor who is on the global exec team of his denomination, said that he has a list he prays every day.  John Mark Comer begins his day by praying Psalm 23 every morning.  Another pastor I am reading at the moment begins his worship by reading from a liturgy prayer book then sits in silence with God.   I have my Plan A prayer journal – a list – and have playlists I’ve created on youtube and spotify that are reserved for worship time.   Turn your commute into a chapel where you pray and give thanks and worship God – don’t close your eyes though!   You can walk and worship – Jesus used to withdraw to places of solitude and climb mountains to pray and I often thought he would climb the mountain and get to the destination and then pray and then it occurred to me that he probably walked and worshiped at the same time.   You can draw and worship, write and worship, dance and worship, drive and worship, be still and worship, kneel and worship, stand and worship.  

What matters is we ARE worshipping.   What matters is that we have created and implemented a strategy that sets us up for success in making that intentional time to meet with God – the creator, who loves us, who wants to speak to us, who heals us from the inside out, who gives us his peace and presence and power. 

HUMAN INTO HOLY

Sometimes our time of worship at home can feel so human.  We come tired and overwhelmed.  We come with our morning breath and morning attitude.  We come with the to do list.  We come and then get distracted about work, lunch, life, lunch, that thing I said to someone 37 days ago, lunch….  We come feeling messed up and broken and not good enough.  Or we broke our streak and its been 4 days since we had some intentional time.   Or we yelled at the kids.  Yelled at our spouse.  Yelled at God.   We are human.   But yet that divine invitation is still there.  In fact these are the perfect times to worship.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The message version puts it like this:

 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Humble beginnings, honest real conversations and doing as David did over and over again in the psalms – a book of worship songs in the bible – but God.  Time and time again David is life is hard and life is messy and everything is falling apart and I feel like I am drowning… but God is good and God is my rock and God saved me and God is my safe place and I worship Him.  David tells his soul – he tells his human self – to worship.

Psalm 42:5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

Begin human.  You’ll find yourself face to face with our holy God.

HABIT INTO HISTORY

Have you heard about the 21/90 rule? The 21/90 rule states that it takes 21 days to make a habit and 90 days to make it a permanent lifestyle change. … Commit to your goal for 21 days and it will become a habit. Commit to your goal for 90 days and it will become a part of your lifestyle.   

We can habit our way into making history with God.  We create a pattern of making time to spend with God and we then have a history of God speaking to us, God healing us, God’s power, peace and presence changing our life.  The bible says in Hebrews 11:6 those who diligently seek God will be rewarded.  There is reward for our worship. 

Did you know there is physical rewards in our brain chemistry and brain structure when we worship.  Neuroscientists have found that just 7 minutes of worship a day rewires and restores our brains physically.

Researchers have found that when we worship God, there is an increase in BPNF, which is a neurotransmitter that helps us grow healthy brain cells. Every morning, we wake up with 300 million more brain cells. When we worship, gamma waves are created in our brain that can actually help us feel the presence of God.

Psalm 22:3 says that God inhabits the praises of his people and we actually get a physical boost as these gamma waves fire in our brains while we worship.

Gamma waves do more than just make us feel better, they actually increase our intelligence, too. Research has shown that as you worship, you increase in wisdom and there’s an increase in your capacity to understand the goodness of God. As you worship, your brain is comprehending wisdom from the living Word helping grow your capacity to understand that God absolutely loves you. Just seven minutes of worship every day will change your brain. 

People who worship experience less stress, and they even experience a reduction in blood pressure. Their prefrontal cortex, the part of their brain associated with focus and attention, becomes more active over time, helping them avoid distraction and be more intentional.

They also have more activity in their anterior cingulate cortex. That’s the part of our brain associated with love, compassion and empathy. Focusing on God’s love makes us more loving and less angry. It’s easier for us to forgive ourselves and others.  In fact it acts as a buffer between that fear centre – the amygdala – and the prefrontal cortex – to help us be more resilient and brave.

The reward of worship and time with God is a renewed mind as Romans 12:2 puts it :  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Sometimes we might not feel like it or if the heavens didn’t part and angels sung and we were in the glory cloud and so it just feels like we just passed time.  We were distracted and we’re majoring more in discipline than devotion.  Sometimes the heavens part and angels sung and its wow.   But every time we make time to spend with God it transforms us and connects us with God.  God is glad to see us – God delights in revealing Himself to us. 

James 4:8 draw near to God and He will draw near to you.     

PRAISE INTO PRESENCE

The first time I worshipped was in that living room at youth group – where I didn’t know any words and didn’t even know I was worshipping.  It was a hey God if you’re real show me.

The second time I worshipped was at easter camp just 2 weeks later where I gave my life to Jesus.  By then I knew some of the words to the songs and they had a overhead projector – old school technology – and I had seen what everyone else around me was doing.  So I just did what they did.  They closed their eyes.  I did and then opened them again for a sneaky peak at the words.  They raised their hands.  So I did.  I was skeptical of the hands raising thing, these funny Pentecostals.  And then I did it.  And it can only be for me described as a woosh of God’s presence.  As I outwardly expressed my worship God inwardly drew near.

The third time I worshipped was just after that easter camp at home in my bedroom.  Someone had given me some ancient technology that would play songs aka a scripture in song cassette tape.  I sat in my oversized beanbag at the end of the bed and put on my music and just sat there.   I had met God at youth group, I had given my life to Him at easter camp, but it was this moment in my bedroom that changed everything.  Because I was like of course God is at youth group and of course God is at easter camp and of course God would be at church – these holy places and holy appointments – but God was also in my bedroom and as the music and lyrics of these songs played my heart was responding, wow God, you are amazing, wow God, you are mighty, wow God you are good and whoosh.  God was there.   In case no one has told you – God does not live in this building and is not limited to 10-12 on Sundays – your whole life the temple where God wants to meet you at.  God is in your car, your office, your house, your wherever. 

Since those first worship encounters I have had many times when it has seemed like I was face to face with God and other times when my brain has been preoccupied with everything else, and times when my heart was so filled and refreshed and that moment of worship has changed my perspective and my life and other moments when it was like hey God, that was okay, and times when I have fallen asleep and times when it felt no time had passed.  Worship helps me discover and express that I like God a lot.  I mean He is wonderful.  Maybe we don’t talk about that enough, just how wonderful wonderful wonderful God is and wow, I am in awe that we get to worship and connect with Him.  King of endless worth  No one could express How much You deserve?  My worship is my attempt.  More than a song. 

Our praise brings His presence.  Praise is like the password that opens the doors to His presence.  Praise and prayer reveal His presence. 

Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

What do we need to shift to make worship a lifestyle?  Do we need to get a strategy for success, turn a habit into history, human moments into holy moments, praise into presence, turning our discipline into devotion and our singing into surrender?