{"id":2176,"date":"2017-05-28T08:20:51","date_gmt":"2017-05-27T22:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=2176"},"modified":"2017-05-28T08:20:51","modified_gmt":"2017-05-27T22:20:51","slug":"worship-the-heartbeat-of-creation-28-05-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=2176","title":{"rendered":"Worship: The Heartbeat of Creation: 28-05-2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
Worship: The Heartbeat of Creation. Rev 3<\/strong><\/span>
\nRevelation 4: 6-11; 5: 6 – 14<\/strong><\/span>
\nTo worship God ironically is to bless ourselves!<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Heartbeat\u00a0is defined as the pulse of your heart, or a single short moment, or something that acts as a unifying force. I want to speak of worship as a heartbeat \u2013 the pulse of creation and the unifying force of life. My fundamental reason for using this image is that worship gives life to the believer and I suspect gives life to the non-believer as well. Worship is life giving. It keeps us going and going well.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Revelation chapters 4 and 5 provide a grand vision of the heavenly throne room and worship.\u00a0 God, Christ Jesus, the 4 living creatures, 24 elders in white with golden crowns, the multitude of angels, and all of creation both human and creature, worship the almighty Creator God. This God reveals ‘his’ being in Christ Jesus the Slain Lamb [5: 6]. One cannot see this grand vision of worship and not realise that nothing is outside of God’s sphere of influence.\u00a0 The worship of the Lamb, Christ Jesus, includes the whole of creation – those above, on the earth and below [5:13].\u00a0 We read:<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cYou are worthy, our Lord and God,<\/strong><\/span>
\nto receive glory and honour and power,<\/strong><\/span>
\nfor you created all things,<\/strong><\/span>
\nand by your will they existed and were created.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cTo the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb<\/strong><\/span>
\nbe blessing and honour and glory and might<\/strong><\/span>
\nforever and ever!\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
This amazing scene tells us that no one is beyond God’s reach and no one is absolutely lost or condemned, for even those in Hell worship God. Both the worship of God in 4: 11 and the praise of the Lamb in 5:13 indicate that God’s ultimate love ultimately includes all. No one is beyond God’s reach.\u00a0 That\u2019s the majesty of John of Patmos\u2019 theology. It is not the bizarre pictures of beasts and the outlandish images of disaster that are significant. It is the imaginative pictures that uncover the depth and breadth of God\u2019s purposes and love.\u00a0 The insight of this faithful 1st Century Christian sees God\u2019s love embracing the faithful and the faith-less. In the face of disaster and persecution God is victorious. Nothing is beyond the reach and inclusion of God\u2019s ring of love for the world [Jn 3: 16].\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
This is how our Sunday worship service works.\u00a0 We sing praises to God, we acknowledge our sin and seek God’s forgiveness, we hear the Gospel, are encouraged and inspired to live the Christian life, we pray for others and this world and we go out to serve God by living out the truths of love, peace and justice for all.\u00a0 We may do it rather badly, but we do it.\u00a0 Every worship service, however messy or extravagant, is a reflection of the heavenly truth that worship is our response to the Creator who created us, and to the Saviour who gives us life. We worship our Creator and we honour our Saviour. Then we go to serve God by serving others.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
But there is more to worship. Worship does not merely honour the One who deserves it, but ironically, by it the worshipper is blessed. Worship helps us recognise both whose we are and who we are.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Worship is all-embracing.\u00a0 We\u2019ve already seen that all creatures worship God and ultimately all humanity. Nature, as we call it, itself honours God by its beauty and value.\u00a0 Worship looks not only to God but the whole world.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Worship is awe-inspiring.\u00a0 As we uncover the wonder of God, God\u2019s omniscience and God\u2019s sacrificial love, we can only worship.\u00a0\u00a0 Revelation\u2019s imagery of the numerous \u2018eyes\u2019 in the heavenly throne room reminds us of God\u2019s all-knowing. The \u2018lamb slain\u2019 declares God\u2019s love and the very nature of God\u2019s power \u2013 redemptive self-giving love. The 4 beasts around the throne reveal the majesty of God [vv 7,8].\u00a0 The sea of glass signifies that God has controlled the sea. In ancient times the sea was understood to be the place of chaos. God\u2019s controlling of the sea is a sign of God bringing order out of chaos. The sea of glass represents God\u2019s creative power. These images that are strange to us were understandable to the hearers of Revelation. In turn they might have great difficulty in watching a Grand Final match or seeing our flag!<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Worship is age-less. Worship transcends the moment and includes past and future in the present. God is the beginning and end of everything. It follows that worship embraces everything God is – the alpha and omega [1: 8, 17].\u00a0 So when we come to worship we find ourselves remembering the past and preparing for the future in the present moment of worship. Every time we worship the past and the future collapse into the present. This grand vision of worship reflects this truth. Now that the Lamb has been slain for our redemption, those past events along with the creation itself give us reason to praise God, but they also take us forward as the Lamb is the only one worthy to open the seals and take us into God\u2019s future.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Take for example, the Holy Communion service. In that service we remember the work of Jesus and the faithful witness of the saints from Abraham and Sarah through to today. We look back to the events of Easter time and we look forward to God\u2019s completion of this world.\u00a0 We sense our time here is temporary and death is not final. In our worship we continually look back to the past in our lives celebrating the great moments and praying for forgiveness for the weak moments. But then we look forward to God\u2019s future for us.\u00a0 We go out to live out God’s sacrificial love in sacrificial love for others. Self is denied and others are welcomed. Here in this moment of worship the past and future are gathered together.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Worship assures us.\u00a0 We are strengthened in our faith and so have the confidence to follow Christ Jesus.\u00a0 Worship releases us from this world. It lifts not only our eyes, but also our minds upwards to the transcendent in life. We see the bigger picture and we see ourselves in community with God and others.\u00a0 Worship lifts our spirits. In a very material sense our thanksgiving and our singing, our praise and our joy release endorphins that energise and help us face tomorrow with joy and confidence. We are saved from looking into the limited nature of our immediate situation to see the limitless nature of God’s past, present and future. <\/strong><\/span>
\nWe are affirmed in our being.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Worship advances.\u00a0 Worship brings God’s future into our present and thus converts our past into the present.\u00a0\u00a0 Worship advances us by calling us forward into God’s intended purpose and future for us. So we start living by what lies ahead rather than living by past experiences that push us down a one-way street. We call this hope. Hope takes us out of the muddiness of the past into the green grass of the future. We all tend towards letting the past determine our future, but with God we can let God\u2019s purposes pull us into a new way of being. Worship allows us to look to the future and begin again because God forgives and renews us through the faithful love and work of Jesus.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
In Revelation the entire creation worships God – humans and creatures and nature all worship. And God accepts worship of the entire creation. Worship is universal and God\u2019s acceptance is universal.\u00a0 This is why worship is so important. It is the heartbeat of creation. It is the heartbeat of life. Worship gives us life.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
To walk into an artist\u2019s studio and admire her\/his works is an act of worship. You show worth to the artist by admiring their creations. That is what worship means: it is showing worth and appreciation to the artist. In our worship we show worth and appreciation to God who is the great artist and architect. To pause and to appreciate the beauty, wonder, enormity of creation is to show worth to God \u2013 to worship God.\u00a0 Correspondingly as we appreciate the artwork we feel blessed. We become joyful and our spirits are lifted. I practise that a lot. I will often pause and appreciate the beauty of the small insect, the clouds and people. And in appreciating such things my spirit is lifted. Likewise, to see the ugliness of our excessive waste, the effects of our exploitation and the pain of our abuse depresses my spirit. There is so much beauty to see. We see it in the smile of another or the struggling weed in the cement crack.\u00a0 There is nothing more beautiful in this world than that symbol on the wall \u2013 the Cross \u2013 it speaks to us of the most beautiful thing of all. The utter ugliness of an instrument of cruel death was embraced and conquered by selfless love.\u00a0 The Cross tells such a great and beautiful story. The ugliness and hopelessness in life can be restored by God\u2019s self-giving love.\u00a0 Indeed we can sing \u2026<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
Lord, I lift your name on high;<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lord I love to sing your praises.<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m so glad you’re in my life;<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m so glad you came to save us.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
*******<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
\nPeter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC:\u00a0 28\/05\/2017<\/strong><\/span>
\npgwhitaker@tpg.com.au<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u00a0\/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Worship: The Heartbeat of Creation. Rev 3 Revelation 4: 6-11; 5: 6 – 14 To worship God ironically is to bless ourselves! Heartbeat\u00a0is defined as the pulse of your heart, or a single short moment, or something that acts as a unifying force. I want to speak of worship as a heartbeat \u2013 the pulse of creation and the unifying force of life. My fundamental reason for using this image is that worship gives life to the believer and I suspect gives life to the non-believer as well. Worship is life giving. It keeps us going and going well. Revelation chapters 4 and 5 provide a grand vision of the heavenly throne room and worship.\u00a0 God, Christ Jesus, the 4 living creatures, 24 elders in white with golden crowns, the multitude of angels, and all of creation both human and creature, worship the almighty Creator God. This God reveals ‘his’ being in Christ Jesus the Slain Lamb [5: 6]. One cannot see this grand vision of worship and not realise that nothing is outside of God’s sphere of influence.\u00a0 The worship of the Lamb, Christ Jesus, includes the whole of creation – those above, on the earth and below [5:13].\u00a0 We read: \u201cYou are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.\u201d Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, \u201cTo the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!\u201d This amazing scene tells us that no one is beyond God’s reach and no one is absolutely lost or condemned, for even those in Hell worship God. Both the worship of God in 4: 11 and the praise of the Lamb in 5:13 indicate that God’s ultimate love ultimately includes all. No one is beyond God’s reach.\u00a0 That\u2019s the majesty of John of Patmos\u2019 theology. It is not the bizarre pictures of beasts and the outlandish images of disaster that are significant. It is the imaginative pictures that uncover the depth and breadth of God\u2019s purposes and love.\u00a0 The insight of this faithful 1st Century Christian sees God\u2019s love embracing the faithful and the faith-less. In the face of disaster and persecution God is victorious. Nothing is beyond the reach and inclusion of God\u2019s ring of love for the world [Jn 3: 16].\u00a0 This is how our Sunday worship service works.\u00a0 We sing praises to God, we acknowledge our sin and seek God’s forgiveness, we hear the Gospel, are encouraged and inspired to live the Christian life, we pray for others and this world and we go out to serve God by living out the truths of love, peace and justice for all.\u00a0 We may do it rather badly, but we do it.\u00a0 Every worship service, however messy or extravagant, is a reflection of the heavenly truth that worship is our response to the Creator who created us, and to the Saviour who gives us life. We worship our Creator and we honour our Saviour. Then we go to serve God by serving others. But there is more to worship. Worship does not merely honour the One who deserves it, but ironically, by it the worshipper is blessed. Worship helps us recognise both whose we are and who we are. Worship is all-embracing.\u00a0 We\u2019ve already seen that all creatures worship God and ultimately all humanity. Nature, as we call it, itself honours God by its beauty and value.\u00a0 Worship looks not only to God but the whole world. Worship is awe-inspiring.\u00a0 As we uncover the wonder of God, God\u2019s omniscience and God\u2019s sacrificial love, we can only worship.\u00a0\u00a0 Revelation\u2019s imagery of the numerous \u2018eyes\u2019 in the heavenly throne room reminds us of God\u2019s all-knowing. The \u2018lamb slain\u2019 declares God\u2019s love and the very nature of God\u2019s power \u2013 redemptive self-giving love. The 4 beasts around the throne reveal the majesty of God [vv 7,8].\u00a0 The sea of glass signifies that God has controlled the sea. In ancient times the sea was understood to be the place of chaos. God\u2019s controlling of the sea is a sign of God bringing order out of chaos. The sea of glass represents God\u2019s creative power. These images that are strange to us were understandable to the hearers of Revelation. In turn they might have great difficulty in watching a Grand Final match or seeing our flag! Worship is age-less. Worship transcends the moment and includes past and future in the present. God is the beginning and end of everything. It follows that worship embraces everything God is – the alpha and omega [1: 8, 17].\u00a0 So when we come to worship we find ourselves remembering the past and preparing for the future in the present moment of worship. Every time we worship the past and the future collapse into the present. This grand vision of worship reflects this truth. Now that the Lamb has been slain for our redemption, those past events along with the creation itself give us reason to praise God, but they also take us forward as the Lamb is the only one worthy to open the seals and take us into God\u2019s future. Take for example, the Holy Communion service. In that service we remember the work of Jesus and the faithful witness of the saints from Abraham and Sarah through to today. We look back to the events of Easter time and we look forward to God\u2019s completion of this world.\u00a0 We sense our time here is temporary and death is not final. In our worship we continually look back to the past in our lives celebrating the great moments and praying for forgiveness for the weak moments. But then we look forward to God\u2019s future for us.\u00a0 We go out to live out God’s sacrificial love in sacrificial love for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Leighmoor.Master","author_link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/author\/leighmoor-master"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Sermons<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Worship: The Heartbeat of Creation. Rev 3 Revelation 4: 6-11; 5: 6 – 14 To worship God ironically is to bless ourselves! Heartbeat\u00a0is defined as the pulse of your heart, or a single short moment, or something that acts as a unifying force. I want to speak of worship as a heartbeat \u2013 the pulse…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2177,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions\/2177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}