Accountability to transforming worship

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Thanks, Liz. Thank you, Dylan and team. Morning. Good morning. Oh, that's a cheery one. Excellent. Everyone's hanging in there. They're all going so well. Did you feel a little bit, sort of, things were different this morning? We only had one worship song, then we had the pastoral spot, then we had another worship song, and then we had the message. Did anyone pick that up? Excellent. Have you ever been ripped off? Yes. I hear a yes over there. We're looking at today lessons from James, and faith lived out, and one of the great things about the book of James is it's written to us as believers, and how we engage in our life. And as we're living out our faith, we are called upon to just every now and then take a step back and say, what am I doing? What God wants? Am I seeing this the way God sees it, or this about me? And so as we go through the book of James, so far we've talked about the accountabilities in James, the accountabilities to God's Word, and how we're kept in sync with that, how we're connected with that, and how we're designed and required to really embrace God's Word. And so we read God's Word daily, we enact it in our lives. We also talk about the accountability of works, and what it means to actually live out our Christian faith in a way that others will respond and say, what's this God thing about? I want to know more about this God thing. And we're also called to understand that when we look at His words, that our words are important too. Sticks and stones will break my bones. Names will never hurt me. I think Pastor Dave was saying last week, he talked about the fallacy behind that rhyme. Well, today, we're looking at transforming worship in Chapter 4. And you might think, well, I know all there is to know about worship, and that's okay, it's all good. There's only one type of worship, and that is singing. And when we do worship, now we have to put up with the Word. We do worship, or we're going to have a cup of tea or coffee. We do worship in our worship service. James is attacking that a little bit today. He's asking us, and I hope you'll join with me on the journey, about what it means to worship our God. How it pans out in every day. It's faith lived out. Let's pray. Father, we thank You, Lord, for being singing now, hallelujah. Glory unto You. Father, lift our hearts in worship. And Father, it's great to come along and be transformed by worship. And Father, to think about what it means to be in relationship with You. Today, Lord, as we open Your Word and we go through this fourth chapter of James, speak to our hearts, I pray. Lord, don't let us settle for what it means just to be I'm a Christian, I've ticked the box. Lord, help us to desire more. Father, speak truth into our lives. Holy Spirit, I pray that You might touch us not only on our shoulder, but on our hearts as well. Lord, it's just an honour privilege to gather with brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, it's an honour and privilege to be seeking You and wanting what You're all about. And Father, I pray as we continue to go through this message today. Lord, You'll continue to speak to us and challenge us, Lord, into the week as well. And Lord, as always, the words I speak, Lord, I pray Your words, not mine. In Your name, amen. If you've got your Bibles there and you want to open up to chapter 4, we're going to read it in chunks. And as we go through, we'll pull it apart a little bit. But just as before we open up and go deeper into the Word, just a couple of things about a deeper thought about worship. The worship in its understanding is to pay homage. It's to bow down and to exalt. And some of us think, well, we do that. That's part of my life now. But James is challenging us to bow down and worship throughout the week when we're not in a worship service. We're not having those lovely songs inside our heads. It's about being challenged about who we are. It's about connecting to God and how we connect to God. Now, the question I have for you, which is a rhetorical one, is how do you connect to God? Is it through music? Is it through other things? Gary James wrote this book and it's about connecting to God. And he's got nine ways. And why don't you have a listen and see if any of these hit a spot with you. This may be how you worship or connect with God. The first one is the naturalist. Naturalists are those believers whose hearts are best when they get outside and are surrounded by nature. I didn't think this was a thing once until I sat with a young man who was an outdoorist and he loved the outdoors and he was one day unprovoked, told me how much joy he gets hiking through the mountains and through the bush and just taking the awe and wonder of God's creation. And perhaps that's you. Then there's the sensei, the person who, some believers have a sensei. And so they can say, well, you can see God doing things through this and I relate to God that way. It's hearing, seeing, smelling, walking through a forest and it can be some spiritual stuff attained, it can be hearing the word, it can be hearing songs. There's a traditionalist where it's not so much traditionalism but it's traditionalist. And those are the folk who really love the idea of all the liturgy, the magical worship. There's actually all the things that happen, the system they have. That's why I asked if some were a bit off-put this morning because we didn't stick to our liturgy. Did you know we have a Baptist liturgy? It's open song, song, worship song, song, word, word. Lindell knows what I'm talking about. But some people find great comfort in that and they relate to God. They connect with God through that. My mum is one of those. There's the ascetic, the person who withdraws nuns and monks and asceticism but some people just find great solitude. There's a bit of a place out towards Minden where the person is set it up as a respite place. There's a place to go and just sit and hear and listen to God. And how they maintain that is they take your phone and your laptop off you as you walk through the door. Because you're not there to do anything else except listen to God. And I know a gentleman, one of my pastor mates did that and he said the first 24 hours he killed him. Because he thought, look up a Bible verse. And he couldn't look up a Bible verse on his phone. He had to use the old fashioned way with paper and they took him a while. There's the activist, the person who sees the confrontation of God's fight going on in the world. And they take God's fight to people. Do you see what I'm getting at here? There's all different ways of connecting to God and sometimes we have this final vision where we say, well, yeah, no. There's only one way to do it. If you don't do it my way there's something wrong. And that's what James was talking about. There's the caregiver, the person who just is the hands and feet of Jesus and so practically. They'll walk through a church or through a group of people and just really feel that this person's hurting and they need some time. They're totally interruptible and they just don't make no sense. There's a pastor they're hard to do anything with because you make an appointment with them and they say they'll be there at 9 o'clock. They get there a quarter to 10 and you say oh yeah, I was just driving along and I saw a person on the side of the road and they looked like they needed help so I stopped to help them and so they connect with people that way and say, well, this is how God's wired me. There's the contemplative person. One's that are marked by an emotional attachment and even an abandonment to God. They are God lovers. They are people who just sit in presence of God and that is how they connect with God. All the rest of the world falls away. And there's the intellectual. It doesn't necessarily mean smart. It means a person who is actually awakened to the concept of God and can see God in things that are happening around him and in his word. That's just nine ones and Gary Thomas talks about that and why I introduced that was because when James is talking in here, we're going to read it in a moment, he's really looking at people who are believers and you think they got it down pat and they're going the same way. Let's have a read. It starts off, it doesn't sound like worship. It sounds like a meeting somewhere. What causes fights and quarrels amongst you? Don't they come from your desire that battle within you? You want something but you don't get it. You kill and cover but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight and you do not have because you don't ask God. When you ask, you do not receive and you ask with the wrong motives that you may spend what you get on the pleasures of yourself. One of the things about mankind is not uncommon to have these desires for pleasure and worship. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 43 that the people are formed for myself and so people pursue different things in the understanding of the world. They go off on a tangent I suppose and they say, well I'm going to really focus on this because they're trying to fill the God spot. When we think about as believers, are we allowing some things to come in and fill our God spot on different times, not just Sunday mornings while the music's playing? It is a struggle and it always will be a struggle and sometimes it's a struggle we can't overcome. And Edmund Chan phrases it very well and I think part of it is, from my understanding is we compartmentalize as Christians. We put things in places so that we can say well I can cope with this now. This makes sense now. I can come to church, put on the mask if I have to and I don't have to be real but I know that God knows my heart but it doesn't mean that connect with God in a real way because you're holding God at a distance. I have a question asked me over the years that says that a person converted to his pastor how can I be a better Christian at work? How can I be a better Christian at uni or a better Christian in my sports? Compartmentalizing. And the response to that is you are a Christian, you're a believer and you happen to be at work. You're a believer who happens to be at uni studying. You're a believer who happens to be playing sport involved in a sporting team or a sporting organization. And so when we understand that and we look at the things that hold us back and we get a bit of a clearer understanding what it means. So let's break these down a little bit. Let's have a look at the control by our desires part. Things that separate us from God that sneak in for us for a little while every now and then. James talks about the motivation behind the battles within and the quarrels that happen. He talks about the things that are interpersonal. Things that we build up. Things that we maintain that we have to have. When you do a course on conflict resolution it talks about how when you enter into a resolution process that you need to forget about everyone winning and you can forget about compromise. Compromise means that someone has to live. What you have to do is say, well, okay, what do I really need to take away from this? And if you are prepared to give something up in the conversation and something up in the interaction then what will happen is that you start to feel that you're getting somewhere. Because we have these battles and quarrels within us then it affects how we relate to people on the outside. He also speaks about pleasures, a peace from personal gain. You hear the story of people saying, well, I've accumulated a lot of wealth in my time but I'm still not quite happy. And remember years ago, 2008 I think it was when the stock market, the world financial crisis hit. And some people saying, we're going to die because our pension is going to disappear. And God had that but it was interesting how people were focusing on the future and not working out what God wants from the present. And when we go through our transformation of worship, we're looking at faith worked out people are watching everything we do and how we interact with each other and with God. He talks about being cloaked with the falseness in serving God. It's doing things to make yourself look good. I don't know one person in this church I've encountered yet who has a false humility about them. There's not one person yet who said, I do this because it makes me look good and they have a poor Logan head wobble as they walk around. And it's about holding achievements up as idols. Holding what you do up as an idol. I've achieved this for God really. I do this for God really. One of my favorite illustrations I've used over the years is the whale and the sucker fish. Some of you may be familiar with this and I'll do my best to explain it to you. I was going to do a graphic but I thought that might be a good idea. I'm going to do a graphic but I thought that might be even more confusing. But I want you to think of it in this way. Think of a whale as big as a whale as I'm thinking blue whale. The biggest one of the lot. And think of a sucker fish. A little tiny fish that attached itself to other things for its livelihood. It goes along there's fish that hang around the mouths of sharks and they get the bits of crumbs that fall off. There's some sucker fish that actually suction on and then scrapes through the flesh, the outside flesh and just leach a bit of blood out as they go. And think of the whale now. Go back to the whale. If your relationship with God is typified as a whale then it is strong. It is powerful. And you can do all sorts of things in the life of the church and in your life that suction on to that and fall away. And suction on and fall away. But you and God are still good. You've got a great relationship with God. But here's the kicker. If what you do becomes your whale and that's how you define yourself with God and God becomes a sucker fish once that ministry is taken away from you. Once God says step down from that ministry all of a sudden you feel lost and you're flopping around because your relationship with God is tiny. And so when we compartmentalize what we're thinking about here and how we interact with people trying to work out our walk with God with God in the world is that we understand that we need to get our priorities back to being the whale. Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings. You all familiar with Lord of the Rings? Who's read the books? Oh, bless you. Who's just seen the movies? Yeah, I identify. I've tried to read the books. It was so long. But there's a character in Lord of the Rings that typifies humanity and I believe what this verse is talking about. This passage is talking about. And that's Gollum. Starrsoft is Smurgol. He was another one of the little guys who got possession of the ring and the ring became such a symbol in Tolkien's eyes and the way the character developed is that this became everything. It consumed him. When our passions consume us, when our quarrels consume us, when God consumes us, our possessions consume us, they become that idol, they become that ring. And we have nothing else but to see it. It changes our personality. It changes how we interact with people. And so when we're professing to be a believer, and James is writing to believers here, we've got to sort of check ourselves every now and then. There's something, Lord, that I've become impassioned about that really is unhealthy. Because in the end, it destroys us. It separates us from God. And that is the motive, the illustration going through Lord of the Rings with Gollum holding onto the ring even to the last part of his life as he went into the Vava. God doesn't want that for us. He wants us to walk in fellowship with him. He wants us to relinquish everything we have so that we can be in connection with him in a very real way. So we worship him all the time, all the way. Verses 11 to 13. Give us another understanding. I've jumped. I did that on purpose. Brothers, do not slander one another who speaks against his brother or judges him. Speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one lawgiver and judge, one who is able to save and destroy, but you, who are to be judged, who are you judging your neighbour? So when we jump to that passage of scripture, it's talking about our public persona and how we go about getting our plound of flesh. How we make sure we're right. Have you ever tried to sit with a toddler in church and make them sit beside you? Most parents now realise it's a war not worth waging. My memories go back to this church when our kids were tiny. I can remember from the old church over on Moirfield Road and all the dads would come along with their little ones and when the kids started squealing, we'd walk them out onto the veranda which is out through the double doors and some of you might remember though if you're still here from then. And we'd be out there patting our bubs, our little ones on our shoulder and just making sure they don't disturb the people because some of the people in the church were giving us funny looks. It doesn't happen here. We'd be out there one day with me and a dad and another dad out there and we're whacking away our kids not belting them but you know that boom, boom, boom you do. You know what I'm talking about? In rhythm with their heartbeat if they stop breathing you can resuscitate them. And we're chatting away and one of the deacons comes out and he opens the double glass door and he speaks, could you guys be quiet? We're trying to pray in him. We can't hear ourselves because you guys are being too loud. We're having a great time of fellowship in the foyer. Our personal interactions sometimes can get in the way of God. Who we are and who we think we are and how we are and some things we say well that's just me but that's not what this passage is saying. The passage is saying you need to give this over. Slander in the list of sins that aided us from God 24 times in the New Testament. I wonder if it's a problem. I wonder if people are saying things they shouldn't be saying. I wonder if there's little things leaking out of conversations that shouldn't be said. Again, I'm not trying to look at anyone in specifics in the church. I'm just saying it's a personal thing between you and God. As God said to you today I need to bite my tongue a bit more. It talks about judging others failing to reconcile in a God-honoring way. And that's what that passage is about. Little power that passage is about. It's about when we have an altercation or a disagreement. How do we honour God in the resolution? How do we witness to people and say look, I need to come and just say I'm sorry or I need to ask you forgiveness or can we talk about this? Most importantly, can we pray about it? Is there something we need you to give to God in this because I know it's bringing me down it must be bringing you down as well perhaps. What is God saying to you today? Is that something that God's speaking to you about that you need to sort out with him? And then in verse 13 talks about the future plans. And I think this is a hilarious one. I get this one a lot. It's about saying I'm going to do this. Oh, by the way, God, help me out here, will you? I want to make sure I go this way and I'm going to do this thing. Can you help me out, God? Oh, God, you're not listening to me. It's not going well. Come on, God, catch up. We're doing this together, aren't we? Instead of saying, well, what does God desire me to do? I'm not sure where you are in your life, whether you've got a decision to make soon or you're making decisions about the future. But I know that in Gatton we had this scenario rise quite a few times with the vets as they come through. A vet is a long study. Sometimes it could be seven years studying vet out at Gatton and young people come to me and they say, Pastor Doug, I'm applying for this job, this job and this job and I want to know which one God wants me to go for. And I said, what makes you think he wants you to go to any of these jobs? Oh, because this one's near the beach and this one's got big animals and this one's got small animals and this one's got this and this one's got that. And I said, but if you just pray and say, Lord, show me before you even open up the book, what do you want me to do? And it's quite amazing if they do take that on board how God opens doors. You might be thinking of quitting your job. Is that about you or is it about what God's laying on your heart? And perhaps some of you know the story of how I got into ministry. I was a teacher at Burpingary and I applied for all these jobs being deputy principal and actually got appointed at one job and lost the job to another person who was more qualified or better looking and then I started to get to a point and say, Lord, what do you want me to do? And then a person in my family said that, well, I think you should be a pastor. I think you should look into ministry. And I said, yeah, no. And so I walked away from that one for a little while. After about five years, I said, OK, Lord, what do you want me to do? And so how he broke me out of it was he put me in a very uncomfortable situation. He transferred me from Burpingary School to Tullawong State School. The discipline at Burpingary School was absolutely wonderful. Everyone was respectful, kids, parents, teachers, went into that school, different understanding of discipline, if I can use that word loosely, and I just go, oh, this is just wrong. There's so many things not right here. And so I started praying even more honestly, Lord, are you sure you want me in this school because this job just opened up and you're wanting this for a while to transfer out? And then it became more and more clear, step out in faith. And trust me. My intention was to go higher up the education ladder. God's intention was different. He said, I want you to go this way. It wasn't until I was able to honestly pray, Lord, hold me through this. Lord, guide me through this that he opened the doors that he did for where he wanted me to be. Sometimes in spite of ourselves. So that's the future plans. And I've taken a little bit of liberty here and I thought about the eyes of our humanity. And as the eyes of the humanity come up on the screen and want you to have a look at them, this first one is selfish. The eye is in the middle. Next one is desire. Again, where is the eye in the middle? Motive. Where is the eye? Almost in the middle. And where is sin? Smack dab in the middle. When we give in to our selfishness, when we give in to our desire, we give in to false motives, we sin. The Bible tells us that. So how do we get back from that? Where is the hope in all of this? It's just a shocker. Well, that's where transforming worship comes in. That's where the next part of Scripture from verses 6 to 10 help us to understand fully God's heart for us and his intention for us. Towards the end of today's worship service, Pastor Dylan is going to lead us with some songs. My heart is that you will do business with God during that time. If there's something that he's pricked your head about, your understanding about, or touched on the shoulder, and said, you need to work on this, then I ask that you please follow the Holy Spirit's direction. Let's go have a look at this one, because the process is quite interesting. I love process, love systems, I love organization. Verse 7, number one, transforming, submit to God. Submit then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. When you resist, when you respond to God's grace, then what happens is that we have a different understanding for ourselves. He speaks to our heart in a different way. It says submit all things to him. And Proverbs 3, 6 says, in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight. Resist the devil. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. When we draw near to God, then he starts to open up things for us. You know the verse that God gave me for this wasn't one big fancy one. It was one of the most simplistic and wholehearted verses that goes with that thing up on the wall over there, that yoke. If you've ever worked with bullocks or seen people work bullocks, you understand how that system works. I'm sure it's been explained to you over the years. But the Scripture verse says, Come to me all 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 yourself. If you've been struggling with some of things God's pointed out today, what's he saying? You vile, foul creature, get out of my sight. No, he's saying, come with me, come to me, and lay your burden at my feet. As I said, my prayer during these closing songs will be where you do business with God. You may not feel like singing, because you know that God wants you to humble yourself. He wants you to be drawn closer to Him, bring your burden to Him. Don't just sit there and see then, don't try and fob it off, don't try and say there's too many people. One thing about a church this size is very anonymous, isn't it? You can sit here and go, he's not talking to me, God is. The scripture's going to tell us to grieve. Grieve more than wail. Change your laughter to mourning. Wow. And your joy to gloom. Sometimes we're down to the false presumption that if to be a Christian we've got to be happy, and we've got to be, hey, it's really good, yeah, now how's it going? Awesome, God's awesome. When we do business with God, and we're really, really down to one-on-one with Him, we realize, oh, this isn't pretty. This is quite ugly. What does the scripture just encourage us about that? In 2 Corinthians, it talks about it in this way. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. If you're under a godly sorrow, then what you're doing is you contrite in your heart. You're saying, God, oh, no, I'm not worthy. God, I know I've been doing this for a while. God, I really need to get this sorted with you, and I'm really sorry. I need to come into your presence in a real way. God, you know what I'm struggling with, Lord? I need to bring it to you. My burden's too much for me to bear, Lord. I need to come into your presence. One of the great things about corporate worship is we lift our voices to God together. Church no longer is where you come along to be, given things. You come along to actually worship God. You lift up your voices. You lift up your hearts. You leave yourself open to God's word to teach you. I encourage you to do business with God. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, no regret at all. Lastly, scriptures talk about being humble. There's the last part that says, humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. When we humble ourselves, we drop the mask. We say, this is who I am, God. Lord, you know me. You say I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Lord, you know who I am. You know that I walk from this place. You know what I did yesterday? Last night, what my thoughts were, in pure thoughts or other thoughts. Lord, you know that I have something in my heart I can't give up. What He's saying is, humble yourselves. He's saying, come into the presence of me, your loving Heavenly Father. Forget what anyone else is doing. Come into the presence of the one who loves you deeply and wants you to grow and thrive in Him. In Proverbs, it says it this way. Humility is the fear and respect of the law. Its wages are riches of life. The quality of life in God is second to none. It's a God who loves you. It's a God who wrote this passage for you today. Say, I know what your struggles are. As we close the service, we're just inviting you to think about that, to think about what God said in your heart today. Last week, Pastor Dave said he's going to be at the front to pray with people who want prayer. Perhaps you just want to talk about what God's doing in your life. I'm available after the service. Pastor Dylan will be too. Just wait until he finishes playing first. I know the Deacons, the church council that are here, they'll be willing to sit with you. A brother and sister in Christ began to turn and say, look, this has been an issue. I need to just confess it now. Because I know that you want so much more from me, Lord. You decide to give me the quality of life. See, God's way in transforming worship isn't anything we do. It's about Him. It's about Him accepting our submittance. It's about Him allowing us to draw near, because we're the ones who step away. It's about us being responsible and grieving and being humble about who we are before God. One Peter 2.9 says these words. I hope you can read them. I'll read them for you. Just remember this. You are a chosen people, the royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. For some of us, it's a slow journey out of the darkness, and we know that, and I know that. I can testify that to myself. Worship to you if you'd like to make your way up and going to closing prayer. I'd ask you today, I've seen the songs, a wonderful selection, a real Spirit-led selection. Allow God to speak to you. Allow the Holy Spirit to prompt you today. I'm to say things to you that probably haven't been gained to acknowledge before that you may be healed, because you've been transformed through the worship of the one true God. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, that as we walk with you every day, you're never very far away. Lord, your distance away from us is mitigated by our selflessness, by our desires, our motives. Father, I pray that you'll help us and guide us. Lord, I pray speak to our hearts in this week and in this next moment, Lord. Lord, speak to us in a way, Lord, we've never heard before that we might be prompted to respond to you because you love us dearly. Lord, you don't want us to be static. Lord, you don't want us to stay where we are. We want to grow in you, Lord, to mature in you. And Father, for each person today and for those listening at home or watching at home, I pray, Holy Spirit, just prompt them, either affirm them or just challenge them. Lord, let us know that you are there. Lord, as we sing these songs, Father, continue to speak to us and guide us. Your name, amen.