We are on our last Sunday for the 40 Days of Community sermon series. We have learned that we are better together when we fulfill God’s various purposes in our faith journey as Christ’s followers and His church. Those divine goals God has placed us on this earth can be summarized as a short simple word: love. In our main text for today, Jesus made a remarkable statement related to this subject: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22: 37-38). Nothing is more important than learning to love God and other people. Regarding the first command in this proclamation, expressing our devotion to God can be described as the term knows as “worship.” Today’s vital divine assembly is not just a ritual or routine we do on Sundays at church. The word “worship” literally means “worth-ship.” But we are also in this sanctuary or via Zoom to worship the worthy One. According to the Bible, only God fits this requirement. During worship, we give thanks to God and adore Him with all our beings. At any time and in any place when we express our love to God, we are worshipping him. Worship is crucial to the life of every Christian. Expressing our love for God is not only something we do individually, but it is also something we do collectively. Many powerful and meaningful moments can take place in this godly collective experience. Have we ever thought that all Christians worldwide gather to unite and praise the Lord each Sunday? In some parts of the world, believers put themselves at risk for those sacred gatherings due to religious persecutions. Why do they do it? Because they want to declare that God is worthy in their spiritual journey. There is power in the unity of worship since we are better together. This morning I want us to explore four ways the Bible tells us we can express our devotion to God in unison.

The first way is by singing to the Lord jointly. Many of us agree with the following statement: “Music and love go together because music comes from the heart.” There are many love songs in the world. But did you know that more songs have been written about God and His love than any other person and topic on this planet? Nothing even comes close to second place. Someone said, “Christianity is a singing faith.” The Christian religion is not one of the denominations but about our intimate relationship with God.

In our Psalm for today, the Psalmist encourages us to “Sing praises to God” repeatedly (Psalm 47:6-7). Sometimes we hear ourselves singing awful or out of tune. Do you know that one most beautiful sound is the human voice? Whether on or off the music, God loves our representatives as long as we worship Him with all our hearts. Again, singing faith is a matter of our heart and motivation. The praising command is given to all of God’s people throughout the Psalms. When we read the Book of Psalms, we may realize that God wants us to sing to the Lord not only individually but also as a group with one voice. The Psalmist says, “Come, let us for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1). One more time, singing to the Lord in one breath is a critical part of our expression of love toward God.

Our church always prepared special music for Christmas Eve services when my wife and I were university students. One primary presentation was to form a massive choir and practice a magnificent piece of the song. One favourite we sang in unison was titled The Messiah, composed by George Frederic Handel. This song was dedicated initially during the Easter season. Nowadays, The Messiah seems popular during Christmas time as well. Some years ago, we made an inspirational performance at Knox, Glenarm, based on that hymn at the Eve service. Every time we participate in that beautiful melody, whether chanting or humming, we may feel millions of Heavenly angels surround us and praise the Lord. When we express our love towards God in singing, some of us may want to close our eyes and remember our mighty and merciful God. Some may like to raise our hands as we praise the Lord. Some may want to clap our hands and even like to dance. When we sing as one, we are all performers. God is the only audience in that divine activity. Let us pause for a few seconds and recognize how much God has blessed us. We are given the privilege of being in a sanctified place to lift our voices from our inner being to the Creator in unison.

Another way of expressing our love toward God is by talking and listening to Him in prayer. When we love some people, we don’t just want to spend time with them. We want to speak with them. Remember when you first fell in love as a teenager, and your parents might be upset because you were always on the phone? My wife and I have seen this through our two boys, Caleb Jr. and David, and their girlfriends, Allison and Priscilla. They appear to talk with one another all the time! When we talk to our loved ones, we are usually comfortable talking about almost everything: our hopes, our fears, our dreams, our anxieties, the things we are embarrassed about, the things we are proud of, our hurts, our cares, and every part of our life. In a spiritual matter, the Lord wants us to talk to the Creator, our God, about everything. That is God’s invitation for us to communicate with Him. One of my favourite hymns says, “What a Friend we have in Jesus all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer…” Are we expressing our love to God by carrying everything to Him in prayer?

Prayer is not only conversation with God but also a time to listen. Listening is one great gift we can give to some people we love. We all want to be listened to in a conversation. When we listen to our children, spouses, parents, friends and neighbours, coworkers, or anybody, we say, “I value your thoughts and opinions. You are important to me.” If we don’t listen to them, we may indirectly express our thoughts to them, “You don’t matter to me.” One of the ways we express love to anybody is by listening to them. The same is true with God. Sometimes we tend to think that prayer is just talking to God. That is half of the prayer. The other part of prayer is “being quiet and letting God speak to us.” Have we ever paused in being busy doing something and said to God, “Do You have anything to say to me right now?” We must stop and listen to God because He is always speaking to us. We remember Jesus waking up early in the morning, finding a quiet place, and talking and listening to God before starting any ministry (Mark 1:35-39). Later, Jesus asked His followers to join him in prayer and called His church “the house of prayer” (Matthew 21:14). One of the primary purposes of the church is to be a place for God’s people to pray to the Lord together.

I want to introduce one of the great prayer movements at the “Sarang,” or Love Presbyterian Church in Seoul, South Korea. Some years ago, Korean churches started losing spiritual power and were corrupted. Some well-known Christian leaders became troublemakers in their society. That church started special early morning prayer meetings for forty days at that time. They first started with a couple of hundred members attending. However, as time passed, the number multiplied. Parents woke their children up, and many families came to pray together at the church. More than eight thousand people joined the prayer gathering on the last day of the meeting. Many young people devoted their lives to God during that holy event and wanted to start a new journey of faith before the Lord. They prayed not only for themselves but also for their society, their country, and all the people in the world. As the newly amalgamated church, we want to pray more as one in worship and become a more praying assembly.

The third way we can tell God we love Him is by giving to Him together. In Scripture, God talks more about generosity than any other subject. Giving is God’s most primal nature: John 3:16 – “[For] God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” God wants us to resemble Him. When we love someone, we want to give to them. Someone says, “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.” We need to remember that God does not need our time, money, or gifts. The Creator God already owns all! The amount of giving to the Lord is not mattered to God. The attitude we have toward God in giving matters most to the Lord.

In our Epistle for today, the Apostle Paul talks about this: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). God loves joyful giving, not fearful. Fearful giving is we are afraid we will not have enough if we present that gift to God. Also, giving is not just a financial matter. We can offer God our time, energy, talents, and anything else. God has given each of us the greatest gift, life. He purchased our lives for His excellent purposes, with His precious blood. If we live selfishly, we may lose our God-given opportunities to serve the Lord and care for His church and His people. God wants us to use our God-given resources based on His word so that we may be used as His instruments to establish His kingdom in this world. Worship is giving to God together the best He has given us.

The fourth way to express our love for God is simply by being committed to Him together. Sometimes we think about commitment from an individual perspective. But, often in the Bible, we discover God’s people making commitments in unison. In another Epistle for today, the Apostle Paul says we are to give God our lives as “a living sacrifice” in worship (Romans 12:1-2). Worship should not be limited to a place like a church and a time like a Sunday morning. It can be a lifestyle. Someone described this: “Worship happens here but continues as we go out that door.” Worship can happen once again, at any place, at any time, and in any way. Worship takes place whenever our lives are presented to the Lord in a godly and delightful matter to God.

While preparing this part of the message, I am reminded of the story titled the Unbaptized Arm [Ivan the Great, the tsar of Russia, his 500 soldiers]. This story may be an example of our incomplete commitment to the Lord. From time to time, many of us want to keep our total hearts from surrendering all to Christ as Ivan the Great and his soldiers did. Genuine worship has to come from within our own spirits. We need to ask ourselves whether we have unbaptized arms or not. We need to question whether all of our hearts, talents, time, resources, and activities have been fully baptized or not. If we learn to worship God with all our hearts, none of that other stuff can be as important. Again, authentic worship is the expression of living a life that is wholly dedicated to God. Real worship can only come if our spirit is entirely surrendered and immersed under the water of His holiness and pureness.

Sometimes we get into a competition regarding worship. We forget that true worship does not come from watching somebody else worship, no matter how good they are. Genuine spirit worship can only come when we worship God through singing, talking and listening to Him, giving to the Lord, and being committed to Him. These are the sacred acts of love for the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. God wants us to use all parts of us in worship because He first loved us with all. The challenge is how we live all of those divine worshipping activities out. Remember: We are better together in worship.

* In this sermon, I have used some thoughts and materials from the sermons Rick Warren prepared for “40 Days of Community.” The primary scriptures are Psalm 47:1-9; Matthew 22:34-40; 2 Corinthians 9:6-11; Romans 12:1-2.