Henry Williams

Hi Five Oakers,

The weekend is almost here and there are a few things I want to share with you:

The Weekend

Dan Lukas will be preaching this weekend. Here's a preview of what he's talking about:

A few weeks ago a friend asked me to recommend a book for her to use in her prayer time. For several good reasons, I didn’t give her my real answer. If you come this weekend, you (and my friend) will hear my real answer. And here is a hint, my real answer is so obvious, but is completely overlooked by churches like ours.

PS Don’t worry, the suggestion I gave my friend was still good.

I know his real answer, and I think it will help a lot of us grow as pray-ers.

FYI

Michael Hyatt on "THINKING ABOUT AN AFFAIR? COUNT THE COST: 8 Reasons You Should Run, Not Walk, from Infidelity"

Several years ago a friend of mine had an affair. It was like dropping an atomic bomb in his life. He lost his wife, his kids, his home, his friends, and more. It’s impossible to fully appreciate the devastation caused by his decision—people are still hurting years later. But counting the cost of infidelity is something we should all do.

Charles Stone on "The 10 Most Important Questions You could ever Ask Yourself"

Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.

One More Thing

"We are usually at a loss regarding what to say to God on behalf of another person or, alternatively, to God himself regarding the fulfillment of his purposes in the world. The Lord's Prayer frees us from the tyranny of spiritual creativity and allows us to rest in the confidence of something certain and true. Instead of fabricating something snappy to garner God's attention, Jesus would have us lose all such originality and simply plagiarize … at the [invitation] of the Lord himself." (John J. Bombaro)

Here's the sermon from last weekend in 10 Tweets.

1/ Christian worship is declaring God’s glory with our words, our thoughts, and our actions.

2/ Worship requires an awareness of God.

3/ The more we’re aware of God in our daily lives, the more we will be able to genuinely worship.

4/ You will never be genuinely aware of God here until you’re aware of God out there.

5/ Worship gathered fuels the vision worship scattered.

6/ Worships greater distractions: the place, the music, the sermon can all become the focus. We need to see through them.

7/ Worship is responding to God. In worship, God comes first.

8/ Worship is responding to God’s initiative toward us and God’s initiatives around us.

9/ Peterson: "The devil can be defined as that species of theologian who knows everything about God, but we'll have nothing to do with him."

10/ Worship is entering into God's story. The Israelites in the Bible are us

The Five Whys of Worship

I covered this only on Saturday night.

Why do we worship? Because God tells us to.

Why does God tell us to worship? Because he wants what’s best for us. One of the early church fathers put it this way: “The glory of God is a fully alive human being” (Irenaeus). One of the early confessions of Christianity says, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Pastor and theologian John Piper famously interprets this as “Man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” Worship is about deepest joy and the deepest satisfaction.

Why is worship best for us? Because we were made for it. Human’s worship. All humans worship without exception. The main difference is whom or what they worship.

Why were we made to worship? Because we are made in God’s image and God worships. He worships within himself—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit continually give glory to each other. Jesus said that bringing glory to the Father is his chief end. By the way, this isn’t about being self-centered because, first, it’s three persons in one and, second, there is literally nothing higher of worth.

Why are we made in God’s image? Because God is love and in his love he wanted to share his glory with us. Jesus not only said his life was about glorifying the Father, but that he would share his glory with us. We would be included in his glory sphere.