Living on the Edge

Dave Druey: Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

Chip Ingram: Imagine meeting God. Imagine the awesome splendor of being in His presence. Now imagine going to church this weekend. Is there a correlation between the picture you have in your mind about meeting God and going to church?

Unfortunately, for most of us, our view of church has gotten so warped that we rarely expect the supernatural. We seldom prepare ourselves to really meet God, and we often come away dissatisfied. If you're tired of spiritually circling the field, then stick around because that's our topic on today's edition of Living on the Edge.

Dave Druey: Welcome to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. So, what does corporate worship actually look like when it's functioning the way God intended? What does the word "worship" really mean? And what would change if you walked into church this Sunday the way David walked into the temple, expecting to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord?

That's what we're unpacking today. If you've missed any message in our series called "The New You," just find it online at livingontheedge.org. Here's Chip with today's message titled "How to Overcome Hypocrisy in Your Public Life."

Chip Ingram: Worship is God's antidote for hypocrisy. What happens when you worship? You encounter God. Christ is lifted up. You sing songs that have content that talk about His character, His love, His holiness, and about His program: redemption, love, and reconciliation.

When you worship, whether it's corporately, privately, or moment-by-moment driving the car, when you worship and encounter God and see Him for who He is through the life of a person, through reading His word, by singing songs of praise, or by meditating on truth—when you see God, you will become like Him. And when you become like Him from the inside out, guess what happens to hypocrisy? It fades away.

Let's look at our core text, Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 to 21. Let me read it in the context so that we remember this whole passage is about how we live, how we walk, our behavior, our lifestyle. Verse 15 says, "Be very careful then how you live or walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. Why? Because the days are evil."

Children of Light need to live like light and salt in an evil day. Therefore, don't be foolish but understand what the Lord's will is. Well, what's His will? Two verbs; they're both commands. Negatively, the Lord's will is don't get drunk on wine. Why? It leads to debauchery. It leads to a lifestyle that's ungodly, painful, brings hurt to you, and ruins God's reputation.

Second verb that's a command: Well, what is God's will if it's not to get drunk on wine? Instead, be filled with the Spirit. What's that mean? To be filled means to be controlled. He has control over your life. Two commands, two verbs, then four participles. Remember, in English, participles are -ing words. If you are filled with the Spirit, you're going to be speaking, singing, giving thanks, and submitting.

Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus. Worship is God's primary means of allowing us to see Him for who He is and thus be progressively transformed into His likeness.

After we're told to be filled with the Spirit, those four participles—three of the four are going to talk about worship. It's going to talk about speaking. When do you speak psalms and hymns and spiritual songs? Like, when do you do that? When you worship. When do you sing and make melody in your heart toward the Lord? When you worship.

I want to suggest this passage gives us three modes to see God through worship, three specific ways. The first we're going to look at is corporate worship. The second we're going to look at is personal worship. And the third thing we're going to look at is what I call practicing the presence of God worship.

So let's dig in. Let's talk about corporate worship here. Corporate worship comes out of verse 19, the first portion, where we speak—there's fellowship, songs, hymns, spiritual songs. My definition for corporate worship is the regular gathering of God's people to meet and powerfully experience God in order to ascribe to Him the glory, the focus, and the rightful place in their hearts that He holds in the universe.

Now that's kind of long, so let me say it again. Corporate worship is the regular gathering of God's people to meet and experience God. Why? So that we can ascribe to Him the glory and the focus and the rightful place in our hearts that He already holds in all the universe. Do you get it? Do you think it's a priority? Do you think corporate worship is just something that's kind of nice, a suggestion thrown in there? How important do you think corporate worship is to God?

Notice the text here. Hebrews 10:24 and 25 says, "And let us consider how to spur one another on toward love and good deeds. And let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as is the habit of some, but let us encourage one another all the more as we see the day approaching." We are commanded in Scripture as believers to gather and come together to spur—it's a very strong word—to spur, to ignite, to engage one another to love and good works, coming together as the body of Christ to worship God. Very high priority to God.

Notice Psalm 27:4, an Old Testament picture of this. Think of David, one of the wealthiest men in the world. He had it all. Powerful warrior, musician. And if you asked David in a personal 60-minute interview, "David, what's the one thing that's most important to you?" David would say, "One thing, one thing I've asked of the Lord. This is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."

Why? What's David want to do when he comes to the house of the Lord, the synagogue in those days? What does he want to do and why? What's it say? To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. Are you starting to get this idea? See, unveiled faces, behold, gaze, the beauty of the Lord.

Are you starting to get what corporate worship is all about? It's God's people coming together regularly, systematically to meet God, to see Him for who He is, and then to ascribe the glory and the focus and the rightful place in your heart that He already holds in the universe. Huge priority.

The purpose is to behold God and to see Him. The purpose is to recalibrate your soul. Do you find that when you come and worship, it does that? Do you find that your soul—how's that old song?—how our hearts are prone to drift, prone to wander? When you come and see God, when we sing, when we get into the Scriptures together, when we fellowship with one another, we behold God.

It recalibrates your soul and gives you perspective about what's important, and who you are, and how much you're loved, and that God is sovereign and good. And you need to remember that as we see all the things happening in the world. That's the purpose of corporate worship: to encounter and experience Him.

And then, are you ready for this purpose? It's so that you can come to give your offering. See, the word "worship" literally means to ascribe worth. We've almost lost this in our day. We unconsciously think that worship is a place to come and either get something or to be entertained or to be motivated. We've just sort of fallen into it.

But when you would come before any king at any time in any country in almost any culture in the world, you came in homage number one, and you were privileged to get to have access—few people ever did—and you could never come to a king unless you brought what? An offering.

The reason we come together and ascribe and give Him the place in our hearts that He holds in the universe is so that we get to offer something to Him. He made it all. He is all. He's all-powerful. He knows all. He is the sovereign of the universe, but He chose you and He loves you, and He has relationship with you.

And what do you do with people that you love? If a deep friend, what do you end up doing? You give them gifts. What do you do with a mate? What do you do for your kids? You want to give them an offering. You want to express your love.

So what offering does God want? He wants you. The first thing and foremost He wants when we come to worship, He wants you to come so mentally prepared that you're not asking, "I wonder who's preaching? I wonder if they're going to sing the kind of songs I like?" You're coming prepared to say, "This is the most important meeting of the week and I'm going to first offer myself to God.

And then I'm going to offer my gifts to God, and I'm going to offer my heart to God, and my affections to God. And I'm going to recommit my body to God, and my time to God, and my money to God. And I'm going to say to God, "Who am I to get to come before the King of the universe? I worship You, I thank You, I ascribe worth and value, I bring all that I have and all that I am and I bow in reverence before You and I exalt You in my heart as You are exalted in all the universe." That's the purpose of worship. Is that how you think about it?

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll hear more from Chip in just a moment. If you'd like to go deeper in today's study, visit us online at livingontheedge.org. There you'll find Chip's full teaching library, small group resources, and the free daily discipleship tool to help you grow all week long. You can also download the Chip Ingram app free on iOS or Android. Now back to today's teaching.

Chip Ingram: How do you practice that? How do you practice that kind of worship? Well, one thing it says: it says to speak psalms. Those are Old Testament truths that give us a sense of God's character so we understand who we're bringing these things to. It says hymns. Those are actually New Testament—we find a few of them in the New Testament in that day, and we have now hymns of today.

Hymns tend to be more doctrinally oriented that tell us who God is and what He's done. And then there's spiritual songs. And you have people coming up with a lot of different ideas because we don't have any definition of the Bible for spiritual song.

But a spiritual song is like Mary's response, or the response of Deborah after the battle, or the response of Moses—God even gave him a song and he said, "Put this down in words." And we have this great battle and sing this song so in your experience you remember the good things God has done so that you can worship and ascribe value and glory to Him.

And so a spiritual song can be something that someone else has written, it can be something that spontaneously comes off your lips, but they tend to be more experiential. They tend to tell us what God has done in our life and our experience, where the psalms and the hymns tend to be more doctrinal, more focused on truth.

Now, corporate worship then needs to be God-centered, it needs to be Word-centered. Notice psalms, hymns, spiritual songs have to do with truth. And then there's something interesting here: music plays a vital role. It plays a vital role. There's something powerful—God created music.

I don't get it, but there's something powerful about taking the truth of God and the word of God and the person of God and wrapping it in music because music does something beyond the cerebral. Music does something down in your soul, down in your heart, and allows you to express something in a way that I can't get my arms around. I can't do that on my own.

When we sang tonight "Let everything, let everything, let everything give praise to God," if we could know how much You're worth, Your power, Your might, Your endless love—and I don't know, something just happened inside of me and I just went "Whoa!" And this group served me so I could draw near to the throne of God and see who He was. That's a part of God's dynamic of worship. Now I've got a question for you and then I want to practice this, okay?

The question I have is—and just sort of brace yourself, there's no little dig coming, but it is very convicting, okay? And I want you to think seriously. How do you prepare for the most important meeting that you have all week? You have the opportunity at least once a week to come before the King of the universe, who sent His Son to die for you, who loves you, who's sovereign, who's good, and has commanded you to gather together regularly and systematically.

How do you personally prepare your heart, your life, your schedule, your family, the offerings that you're going to bring? How do you prepare for the most important meeting of any week that has the power to let you see God for who He is, completely recalibrate your soul, and transform your life because as you see Him, what? You become like Him.

Do you prepare for weekly worship with the same level intensity and planning as a good movie? I mean, you know, when there's a really hot movie, you get your tickets in advance, right? And how many people come to a movie, I mean a really hot one, great one, like 10, 15 minutes late? I mean, who cares if you miss the beginning of the movie, right? Or do people come 20 or 30 minutes early and stand in line to make sure you get a good seat? Interesting, isn't it?

Do you prepare to meet God with the same level of intensity that if you had, like, a very hot date for those of you that are single? I mean, you think about—do you plan out what you wear? You plan out what you're going to smell like. You plan out where you're going to go. You think about how much it's going to cost. You're going to think how you're going to try in a good, positive, Christian way to impress her or him.

How about—and this may sound trite—but what if you got a call and just left, you know, you come home tonight and there's a message: "Hi, I'm Secretary of State. I'd like to have a meeting with you." So how would you prepare for that? You got 15 minutes to tell him anything you want. I don't know, I'll put it on a note card while I'm waiting on the outer office, I don't know, you know.

Do you see where I'm going? If you had a major deal, multi-million dollar deal, and you were going to get a good percentage of it, how do you prepare for those major deals when you walk in the room to do the negotiations? When you go to a job interview that could be the job interview of your life and this could be the job that I mean could take you over the top, how do you prepare for that?

I jotted down a few words that come to my mind. I get really mentally prepared. I think about it during the week and the night before. I have an attitude that I come with to all those situations, very clear. I'm punctual. I have focus and I have clear expectations.

Do you worship God with expectation, focus, punctuality, and with an attitude that you now have the opportunity to meet with the most important person you will ever meet that has the greatest power to transform your life? Is that how you worship? And if not, could I suggest that if you begin to approach worship in that way, what you take home would be a different person than you brought in because you would meet God in a deeper, more powerful, profound way.

So we came in, we sang a couple, three songs, didn't we? Does everyone have a little bit different focus of who God really is? Would you like a redo? Would you like to stand with me now and say, "You know, I'd kind of like to sing some songs thinking about who I'm really talking to now. My soul's been soberly recalibrated."

Do you notice the little metaphor here, drunk? You know, sometimes people when they're drunk in love or when they're drunk on alcohol, you know, they're a little less inhibited. It's amazing how inhibited we are in worship and how desperately we're afraid of what other people will think of us.

Dave Druey: You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and a message titled "How to Overcome Hypocrisy in Your Public Life." There is more to hear from Chip coming up in just a moment. God's antidote to hypocrisy: worship.

What a revolutionary yet simple realization to let sink in, and something each one of us can take steps to apply this very week. Because when you come prepared to see God for who He is, you don't leave the same person you walked in.

That's the power of a life built on daily encounter with God. And Chip's brand new devotional, "Growing Deeper in Christ," a 365-day journey to true discipleship, gives you a daily structure to keep that encounter going all week long. A few focused minutes in Scripture, one specific step of obedience, letting truth move from the page into every area of your life.

When you join as a monthly partner or make a donation for the very first time, we'll send you a copy of "Growing Deeper in Christ" as our gift. Become a partner or give your first gift today at livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. You can also purchase the devotional for yourself or for a friend when you visit our website. Again, that's livingontheedge.org.

And then we invite you to stay connected beyond the broadcast by subscribing to the Living on the Edge podcast and following us on Facebook and Instagram at Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Well, now here's Chip with a final thought.

Chip Ingram: If you think this message ended a bit abruptly, you're absolutely right. In fact, something happened in the life of our church when I taught this that was quite unusual. When I got right to this point, we had decided we would stop and worship. And as we began to sing, I realized there is no way I can go and teach anymore.

We need to stop. We have been so off as a church in viewing the value and the importance of corporate worship. We had to just continue. And so today, we want to give you that same experience. As you think about what you have just heard, I want to play a song that will allow you to right now, at this moment, worship the King of the universe.

Dave Druey: That was "Speak My Name" performed by Jason Ingram. Such a great finish for today's message. What is it that God wants most from you? Well, next time, Chip Ingram reveals it's not your resume, your talents, or your performance; it's you. I'm Dave Druey, inviting you to find out what that means next time here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.