The Power of Adoration
Scripture Reading: Acts 2: 43 (NIV)
Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
Message: The Power of Adoration (#5 in the Power of the Holy Spirit series)
Adoration for what God is doing
There’s a case to be made that the book of Acts is titled incorrectly
It is titled “the Acts of the Apostles” - a name given many years later by Bible editors when the Bible was compiled
Shouldn’t it rather be titled “Acts of God (through his apostles)”?
Because it is much more a story the acts of God that happened after they received the Holy Spirit - a Gospel after the Gospels
The first congregation was "filled with awe” at the acts they saw
They saw people coming together despite prosecution - overcoming their fear
They saw people being healed from their sickness and disability
They saw people loving each other unconditionally in powerful ways
They were realizing that God was doing something special among them
And it inspired them, it moved them, it touched their lives
Adoration today
Today we speak of adoration - we hear the word adoration every week in the service:
"Prayers of adoration" in the liturgy every week
Words that are carefully and poetically chosen to create a sense of adoration in the worship service
Words that is meant to create a sense of adoration for God in us - something similar to what the first congregation experienced
We find that the authors in the Bible adored God
We could do well in practicing our adoration for God when we take care of reading and understanding adoration in the Bible
There’s Pauls prayer for the Ephesians in Eph 3: 14 - 19
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
And his doxology in Romans 11: 33 - 36
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
There is Psalm 100 that was our call to worship this morning…
And then there is David going at adoring God in Psalm 8:
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Adoration goes beyond knowledge
It goes further when we realize that God is incomprehensible
There is the paradox of thinking about how great God is and realizing that we don’t have the capacity to understand God
We inevitably arrive at a point where we realize that we don’t have the vocabulary to describe God
There is this story about Martin Luther being asked in one of his lectures one day: “who made God?”
He got angry at the student for asking this question (although we all have wondered about it sometime in our lives)
He told the student that God is God and that is why we call him God, because God is beyond any comprehension - beyond beginning and beyond creation
We would do well to understand that we don’t have the ability to understand God
God of Revelation
We only know God because He reveals himself to us
In our Reformed Theology we say that God reveals himself in nature and through his Word (Bible)
There is so much to be seen about God when we take care to look for Him
Yet there is so many that don’t see God, even though He is revealing himself to them - think about scientists
The Word became flesh and dwelled among us - we see God through Jesus
God reveals himself through love (God is love) - we experience God when we are loved
God reveals himself in other human beings around us - as we are made in God’s image
The Power of Adoration
We are so limited in the way we think about God, yet we can have the power of adoration
Something happens in us when we share our adoration for God with each other:
- Our Godly imagination is unlocked - we get to see new possibilities because we are reminded that God is Almighty
- Our spirits are lifted - I have seen firsthand how spirits are lifted in a hospital bed when God is adored in prayer and Scripture
- We access new perspectives on life - think Job, think Paul in prison, think Moses, think David, think Revelation
May you feel the power of Adoration today when you direct your thoughts to the adoration of our awesome God!
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