Drawing Closer to God

In Worship

Church or NASCAR?

 

It is great to be back this morning.  I have been gone the last two Sundays.  Natalie and Chris had a nice wedding ceremony in a beautiful place.  Natural Bridge is a gorgeous place to have a wedding.  Last Sunday we went to church at Province Road Church of Christ; where Jeff Walling preaches.  That was enjoyable.  Many of you remember Jeff Walling.  He is one of my favorite preachers.  Then…  after going to church with Tera's family, David Todd took me to Charlotte Motor Speedway.  We went to the Coca-Cola 600.  That's a NASCAR race; 42 cars racing for 600 miles.  100,000 of my closest friends and I, watched cars take left turns for 5 and 1/2 hours.  It was great.  The guy I was pulling for even won. 

 

After the race it struck me that NASCAR is like… going to church.  People gather on a Sunday for praise; not God, but their favorite driver.  There was lots of praise going on.  There are rituals sayings, "Gentlemen start your engines".  There is singing; a concert before the race.  There is communion; Bud Light and hot dogs.  I didn't commune, but many did; multiple times.  People wore theur Sunday go to NASCAR clothes.  There were priests, also known as sports announcers, who explain all that is going on.  There was giving.  It costs to go.  There was a sense of community with a common purpose.  Cheer your driver to victory!  It was like going to church.  To some it was religious.

 

While thinking about NASCAR being like church, I began to ask, "What is really better about going to church than going to NASCAR?"  Why not go to NASCAR instead of church?  Many of the benefits of going to church were at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and it was twice as much fun.

 

Those thoughts moved me to think about all kinds of other things which could take the place of church.

 

There are lots of choices which people make instead of church on Sunday.  NASCAR is just one of many sporting events which could replace going to church.  I suspect if we turned the TV on, right now, we could find half a dozen different sporting events;  your golf, your basketball, your hockey, your bull riding maybe even some bowling.  Sunday has to be the most important day of sports in the average week.  What people are getting out of sports may be filling the same need that we get out of going to church.

 

To be fair, it is not just sports.  There are all kinds of hobbies and clubs and meetings and communities which are formed to bring people of together to commune in a common activity.  Music concerts, motorcycle clubs, Facebook, Xbox; it is staggering how many things are in our world which replace the connectivity we get from coming to church. 

 

Lots of people make the NASCAR Choice every Sunday instead of church.  We have the need for church, but many people fill that need with other things.  I think the stats are 10% of Los Alamos is in church this morning. 

 

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So, what do we have to offer those making the NASCAR Choice?  What can we say to convince a person that coming to church is better than rooting for Dale Jr.?

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We could say…

"Coming to church is exciting.  We have a dynamic service.  You would really love coming to church with us! "  Really?  Is our church more exciting then Dale Jr. running out of gas on turn four of the last lap and then my boy, Kevin Harvick, winning at the last possible second.  100,000 people went crazy.  I don't think we can match the emotions of a sporting event.

 

We could say…

"You get to know interesting people at church."  Really?  I know us.  We are boring compared to the interesting people at the race.  Look at some of these pictures.  Interesting doesn't even begin to describe the subculture of NASCAR.

 

We could say…

"We have this great fellowship at church.  My best friends go to church with me.  You will like the people at church."  The problem is, there is amazing fellowship at a race.  People who don't know each other are high fiving and celebrating or crying together.  There was a little girl sitting next to me who shared the joy of my victory.  I don't know her name, but there was a fellowship between us.  I am not sure we could sell going to church as a better way to make new friends.  There are lots of places to make friends.

 

We could say…

"Come listen to our great preacher.  He is spectacular."  You could say that.  It might not be altogether true.  But, I would appreciate you saying it...  But I can't compete with the spectacle of sport?  There are millions of dollars being spent on staging these events.  I can't compete with that. 

 

We could say…

-We have great singing.  They had a Stealth Fighter fly over during the National Anthem. 

-We have PowerPoint on the projector.  Charlotte Motor Speedway has the world's largest HD TV.  It's even bigger than the one in Cowboy Stadium.

 

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We could say, "Well, we've got Jesus".  Ah ha, now we are saying something.

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 There is something which happens in church which no NASCAR race could ever compete.  Last week Wade made the following statement.

 

"Thus we are the body of Christ when we truly; when we intimately come together.  This intimacy in worship creates a thin space; a sacramental space; a space where the human and the divine intersect."

 

When we come to church in authentic worship, we encounter a thin place.  When we, as the body of Christ, bring our worship together, we become the temple of God.

 

Ephesians 2:21-22  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

 

The body, together, as we are this morning, forms the temple of God.  The body in worship together becomes the temple which connects to God.  A Thin Place is created when the body of Christ worships!  The fabric of the universe opens and our worship enters into the throne room of God! 

 

Hebrews 10:19-22  Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God.

 

 The barrier between this world and the dwelling place of God becomes thin enough for our praise to flow through.  In worship the veil between us and the Holy Place is torn.  Through Jesus we come before the throne of grace.

 

The more we engage in connecting our hearts to God in worship the thinner the space becomes.  That is what I want.  I want us to lose ourselves in worship.  I want our mouths to be filled with his praise and our minds to be filled with his person. 

 

No matter how exciting a NASCAR race is, no matter how connected anyone feels to the community of fans, no matter how big the TV is, NASCAR has never created such a thin space.  It is in worship of our loving creator that our universes intersect.  Worship creates Thin Space.  That is something we can say!

 

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But it gets even better than that.  "What?"  Something special happens in us when the thin space is created.

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The Thin Space is like… fireworks.  There is a certain kind of fireworks that slowly rises up in the sky.  When it has reached the zenith of its arch, it pauses a second and then… explodes.  You see the explosion and then you hear the bang.  And then streamers go in all directions.  The one firework has become dozens.  Those streamers flow down and seem to hang in the sky forever.  They point us to more fireworks to come. 

 

Creating the thin space in worship is just like that.  As our worship grows; as our hearts rise; as we soar to the heights of connection with God, there is a bang which changes everything.  As we connect to God in the thin space, the streamers flow into every area of our lives.  The streamers point us to the will of God! 

 

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

 

In times of need the power which flows out of the Thin Place brings us grace.  It empowers us to be graceful!  The thin place of worship creates other thin places.  As we are moved by our praise of God, we are turned to our neighbor.

 

Matthew 22:36-40   "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

 

I think what Jesus is saying is, Number One - love and praise and worship the Lord your God with all your heart and then that love will flow from you to your neighbor.  It is the bang of worship which flows into the bang of loving your neighbor.  Then, as we love our neighbor, a new Thin Space emerges!

The service we give in loving our neighbors makes it holy.  Living our lives upon the altar then becomes worship!

 

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, (as we praise him for his mercy) to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship.

 

Wow!  How cool is that!  The streamers, from the firework of worship, brings us into new Thin Places where we worship God by offer our bodies in sacrifice.  I told you it got better.  And you can't get that from a NASCAR race!

 

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I need to share with you one more metaphor which shows going to church is superior to NASCAR.

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I call it the Thin Space Spiral.  Here is how it works.  Coming to church in worship creates a thin space between us and God, which results in the streamers that connect to every part of our lives.  Then, as we live on the altar, offering our bodies from the power of worship that creates more thin spaces which re-energizes our worship.  Because we see God in our service we want to praise him more.  Then we become the hands of God in our world.  The space has becomes so thin that Jesus is incarnate in us!  As we feel Jesus in us, all we can do is then praise God.  That worship then empowers us to do more service which brings the incarnation more powerfully into our lives which then makes the spaces even thinner.  And on and one the spiral goes up drawing us closer to God!

 

So, then we say to our neighbors...

"You should really come to church with us we have a dynamic worship. "  They will be able to feel the thin places and that will be more exciting than NASCAR.

 

Then we say…

There are interesting people at church.  The people at church are interesting because they are Christ incarnate.  Wow, you don't get Christ incarnate at the Race.

 

Then we say…

We have fellowship at church.  Our neighbors will know that the fellowship is more than just a shared activity.  Our fellowship is the shared Spirit within us.  Wow, you don't get to share the Spirit at a race.  The Holy Spirit beats Dale Jr. every time.

 

 Then we say…

Our preacher is full of the Spirit.  That's impressive.  A message from God is better than any message from a sports announcer.

 

The Thin Space Spiral creates a church which is attractive.  It is like the spiral of a tornado which sucks everything into it.  When we get the Thin Space Spiral going it will draw our neighbors into it! 

 

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Let's wrap these thoughts up.

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This year our goal is to draw closer to God.  We are on a metaphorical cruise to spiritual destinations which can draw us closer to our creator.  This summer we want to visit a Thin Place.  On our cruise we are going to spend the summer exploring the Thin Place of worship!  I expect this to draw us upward toward God.

 

People need the community which things like NASCAR offers.  Pulling for your regional sports team is something many of us are drawn to.  "My regional sport's team is better than your regional sport's team."  That is how many of us are wired.  But what we have to offer, as the church, is more attractive than anything the world has to offer, because our worship connects with the Thin Places of God!

 

Tim Stidham

Los Alamos Church of Christ

June 5, 2011