worship starts with seeing God

At the last just worship event, the theme was: encountering God - worship starts with seeing God. To explore this theme, we looked at 3 passages from the Bible...





Shepherds
(Luke 2:8-20) - v20 says that they went away glorifying and praising God. It was a natural response to seeing Jesus. Before their encounter with the angels they weren't particularly seeking God (they were at work) and after seeing Him they go back to work, but their work is now transformed into worship because they have met Jesus. Are there areas of your life where you are not worshipping God? Work, school, home, with firends, with family? Where do you need to ask Him to come in and reveal Himself to you?

Anna
(Luke 2:36-38) - After seeing Jesus, she gave thanks to God and spoke of Him. She was already worshiping God day and night in the temple, but there was still more to come for her. You never reach the end of God, there's always more of Him to see. It's easy for apathy to set in and we think we're happy where we are, but we need to be constantly asking God to show us more of who He is and what He's done.

Wise Men
(Matthew 2:1-12) v11 says that they fell down and worshipped Him. These wise men were probably not worshipers of God before this encounter, they were more likely to be worshipping other Gods. So they were worshiping something else and now they are worshiping Jesus. What changed? They encountered Jesus.

We can't manufacture worship - it's a natural response to seeing God. Do you turn up at church and find it hard to get into it? Do you wonder why you sometimes find it hard to get motivated to pray in the week? It's not that you just need to try harder, it's that you need to see more of God. We only get glimpses of God now and we need continual, regular daily glimpses of God to continue worshiping Him.We need to be asking Him to give us a glimpse of where He is at work, a glimpse of where He is in my family etc.


The almighty creator God doesn't look at the mess we're n and tell us to sort ourelves out, but he came to earth as a man, live a perfect life, died in our place for our sins, was resurrected to conquer death. That's why the angels burst through and couldn't contain their worship, that's why the woman who had been worshipping God for years started singing a new song of praise, that's why the wise men started worshiping Jesus instead of idols, that's why the shpeherds went back to their workplace rejoicing. That's the God we need to see more of.