Sunday, July 25th, 2010

Passionate Careful Worship

When I pick someone up from the airport, I always try to get there early. But the problem is knowing where to wait. You can sit way out in the cell phone lot. You can keep driving around the loop. Or you can do like me and try to hide out at the bottom of the sidewalk in front of the baggage claim. Of course over the loud speaker there’s a recording “The white zone is for loading and unloading. Please do not park.”

One time Karie’s mom was supposed to be out any minute and I didn’t want to make the huge loop again. So I sat about 30 feet down completely out of the way of any cabs or cars. And they must have seen me on a camera because this TSA security guy comes running down the sidewalk yelling and motioning at me—like I have a bomb in my trunk. And I’m thinking “It’s a Civic. Don’t you think I’d at least drive an SUV.”

I’ve wondered sometimes if it wouldn’t be good have a loudspeaker in the church parking lot like that. A recording would say “The worship zone is for living and listening to God only. Please do not park.”

Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 is about worship, entering God’s house. And we see that church is not a place to just park, and sit, and go through the motions.

Solomon has dealt with the emptiness of worldly wisdom, the emptiness of vain pleasure, the emptiness of injustice. Now He looks at the emptiness of wrong worship.

He shows us that passionate worship is careful worship.