Psalms 42:1-2 (Amplified) As the deer pants [longingly] for the water brooks, So my soul pants [longingly] for You, O God. 2 My soul (my life, my inner self) thirsts for God, for the living God. When will I come and see the face of God?
We are essentially a three-part being, comprising of body, soul and spirit. The spirit man in us longs for God and to worship Him. Every man longs to worship something even before they are saved, but for believers, we have found the real Saviour who longs to have a relationship with us. God reached out to us in love through His son and we should respond in love through worship.
First, we need to be comfortable in the presence of the Heavenly Father. There are two kinds of presence: the omnipresence of God and the manifested presence of God. God is omnipresent, so He is present wherever we are. On the other hand, we can also find a strong or manifested presence of God in our midst when we minister to Him, and He in turns ministers to us. Since God created us to have fellowship with Him, we should expect Him to speak to us and minister to us when we enter into His presence through worship and the teaching or preaching of the Word. We need to be conscious in our minds and our hearts that we can encounter Him whenever we meet with Him daily and also as a corporate body of believers.
Second, how we worship in truth depends on how much truth we know or have revelation of. In John 8:32, it says that “the truth will set you free” but the original Greek actually reads “the truth you know will set you free”. For example, when we are first born again, we may know very little about what has happened to us, but what we know is that we are born again, so we can praise God for our salvation. We would also know that we have the imputed righteousness of God, which is something unattainable with our own strength, but is purely a gift of righteousness. It is something we should be eternally grateful for, and so we worship in this truth. However, as time goes by, we will (and should) know more about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, our authority in Christ, and being blessed with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, so we can praise God all the more with these revelations!
In other words, our revelation of the truth is progressive, and therefore our growth in worship is also progressive. So, as a worshipper, we adore God for who He is (not for what He has done, which is praise), and we do it by communing directly with Him using the revelation of God we have as our guide and purpose for doing so.
Sermon Series: ICS Worship Culture (Part 2)
在真理中敬拜
诗篇 42:1-2 神啊, 我的心切慕你, 如鹿切慕溪水。我的心（我的生命, 我的内心）渴想神，就是永生神；我几时得朝见神呢？
我们本质上是由灵魂体三部份组成的。 我们里面的灵人渴望神并敬拜祂。 每个人在得救之前都渴望敬拜某种东西，但对于信徒来说，我们已经找到了真正的救主，祂渴望与我们建立关系。 神藉着祂的儿子在爱中向我们伸手，我们应该通过敬拜以爱回应。
首先，我们需要习惯天父的同在。 同在有两种：神的无所不在和神的显现同在。 神是无所不在的，所以不管我们在哪里，祂也在那里。 另一方面，当我们服事神时，我们可以发现神强烈或明显的同在，而祂也反过来服事我们。 既然神创造我们是为了与祂相交，当我们通过敬拜和教导或宣讲神的话语进入祂的同在时，我们应该期待祂对我们说话并服事我们。 我们需要从头脑和心里意识到，无论我们每天单独或作为信徒团体来到祂面前，我们都可以经历祂的同在。
其次，我们如何在真理中敬拜，取决于我们知道多少真理或得到多少关于真理的启示。 约翰福音 八章三十二节说“真理必叫你们得以自由”，但希腊原文实际上是“你知道的真理必叫你们得以自由”。 例如，当我们起初重生时，我们可能对发生在我们身上的事知之甚少，但我们所知道的是我们重生了，所以我们可以为我们的救恩赞美神。 我们也会知道我们拥有神所赋予的公义，这是靠我们自己的力量无法拥有的，完全是神的恩赐。 这是我们应该永远感激的事情，因此我们在这些真理中敬拜。 然而，随着时间的推移，我们会（也应该）更多地认识圣父、圣子和圣灵，认识我们在基督里的权柄，并在基督里蒙受天上各样属灵的福气，因此我们可以更多地赞美神！
换句话说，我们接受真理的启示是渐进的，因此我们在敬拜中的成长也是渐进的。 作为敬拜者，我们敬拜神是因为祂是谁（不是因为祂所做的 – 那叫做赞美）。我们能够这样做是靠着与神直接的交通，由祂的启示来引导带领我们。
讲章系列：ICS 的敬拜文化 (第二部分)
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