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Worship - Power in the Church
George Verwer

George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker addresses the universal problem of sin and its consequences. He emphasizes that no matter how dignified or powerful a person may become, they are still a sinner in need of help. The speaker highlights Jesus as the solution to this sin problem, describing him as the light of the world, the way, the bread of life, and the door. He also emphasizes the importance of grace and truth, stating that while the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The speaker concludes by acknowledging the challenges and pressures of society, but encourages listeners to find hope and sanity in Christ.
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Yes, unite our hearts in another moment of prayer. Our God and Father, we thank you for yourself and for this time of worship that we have had. We thank you that you do hear us, you do understand us, and we just want to commit these remaining moments again into your hands, that we may not hear or see man, but that there may be another voice, and that our hearts may be willing to respond, and we just give you the praise in Jesus' name, amen. It's encouraging that God is working and that God is doing something in this generation, in this decade, and it's encouraging to see also the young and the old able to work together a little better than I think they were 15 years ago, and people learning to be a little more flexible. And this is encouraging the youth and enabling them to stick around, and it's not killing too many of the older ones in the process. Well, that's another message that I will give this morning. Romans chapter 12, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one member is one of another." And then we go on about various gifts. This is probably my favorite passage of scripture, certainly among the top ten passages that have been such an enormous challenge in my own life. To give you just a half or a few moments of my background, which I feel helps people understand what I feebly want to try to communicate, and it is one thing to say something, it's another thing to communicate something, but I come from a non-Christian background. My grandfather from Holland was an atheist. My father also from Holland was a materialist. My other grandfather from Glasgow was an alcoholic, and I was reared in a materialistic home in New Jersey and did not know Christ until the age just before I became seventeen. That happened in a Billy Graham meeting in Madison Square Garden, where I went mainly out of curiosity, though partly because someone had given me a gospel of John, and it promoted some hunger in my heart for God, and I was converted to Christ that night. I was not properly followed up on. There was a circus in the bottom of Madison Square Garden in the basement, which they usually use as the counseling room, and so there was no counseling. I went back to a liberal church, which I knew was screwy the moment I was converted, but I didn't have any proper follow-up work. Billy Graham, as you know, is viciously attacked. Not too many attack him to his face. They prefer to do it behind his back, especially after he leaves, but he is strongly attacked for not doing proper follow-up. I can tell you the follow-up work, first of all, is really the work of the local church, not the visiting evangelist. And secondly, even when the church fails, the Holy Spirit doesn't. And God's Spirit, striving with my spirit, led me on in the faith, and especially through Christian books, and through a correspondence course that I managed to get into, due to a letter that Billy Graham sent me, just a form letter. And so I thank God for the ministry of this man, and I thank God for salvation. This is still the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I've had many experiences with the Lord, but there's no greater experience than salvation. You know, we live in a day when many believers are belittling the work of salvation. And I was impressed, listening to A.W. Tozer, I don't agree with all his theology, but I certainly agree with most of his spiritual principles. He is a man who has sort of a Wesley idea about a second blessing, and so it's very interesting what he said. Most of you probably don't have that particular belief, I don't, actually, but it's interesting what he said. In strongly attacking people who try to oversell a second blessing package, he says the danger is so often they belittle salvation and make it almost nothing in order to oversell a second blessing, or whatever other blessing really you want to add onto it. And I believe this is a danger among people who have strong convictions about other experiences that take place in the Christian life. And to me, God is just so great that he's always breaking in, really, despite many of our viewpoints. But there is a danger today, really, of underestimating salvation, underestimating what happens to a man when he's born again. Tozer went on in this particular tape that I was listening to, explaining how really most people now don't really expect anything to happen when you're born again. Isn't it true? You know, sure, there'll be a little interest in going to church, and a little interest in reading your Bible, and you know, I mean, a little bit of love will begin to come in your life, and you may not swear quite as much, and lose your patience quite as much. And there's a danger of belittling this great work of grace, salvation. And there is no other blessing, and I'll say this to people, whatever their theology, than the blessing of salvation, because that salvation, Jesus Christ, comes to indwell the believer. This is a very big thing, and personally I'm convinced that many people looking for a second or a third or a fourth blessing may never have had the first one, and never, never have yet really been born again. The Bible says, as many as receive Him, to them He gives power to become the sons of God. That is no small matter, my beloved brethren. That is a big thing. That is a revolutionary thing. And this is really the only reason I'm still here today, for though I may have had many other experiences with the Lord, this experience of salvation is the biggest and the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. This is why I'm linked so closely around the world with those who gather around the Lord's table on Sunday, because I feel it's a time when we lay aside other things, even good things, and refocus in on what Jesus Christ has done for us, and all that we have in Him. We have so much in Him. And I feel that many of us are crippled in our spiritual life simply because we have not yet appropriated that which we already have. We have so much in Jesus Christ, and every one of us here has probably heard many messages on all that we have in Jesus Christ. But I believe this passage reveals why many of us are not availing ourselves of all that we already have in Jesus Christ. And I put it in very simple terms. It's perhaps known as the message I preach on the most. It's simply this subject of commitment, total commitment. And I believe this passage is one of the clarion calls to full surrender. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. It has become my theological belief and the practice of my life to commit my life afresh every day to God. I try to take the first hour or hour and a half, and sometimes in a race only a half an hour, each morning, after a little exercise and making sure I'm awake, to commit myself to God. To me, the morning quiet time, the morning devotional time, which is so essential, especially in this day where there's so much pressure upon us, I believe is a time of recommitment. And I'm here not to ask you whether you have committed your life to Christ ten years ago or two years ago, but I would like to ask you whether you are having the experience of daily laying your life on the altar, every day, seven days a week. I believe that if Christians would do this, if every day by an act of their will they would lay their life on the altar, I believe they would begin to see things in their own life that they would never dream of. There's a great danger among us that we relegate, for example, reality in worship to a once a week experience. Tozer, in one of his books, says that worship is the missing jewel of the evangelical church, and it's true. I'd love to send you a book as a gift, a book by Mr. Gibbs, from the assemblies, I believe, in Australia, called Worship. It's a rather thick book, the kind of book the average person doesn't read anymore because they've been too brainwashed into having everything short and sweet and instant. But if you do still believe in reading and are not illiterate, I would recommend this tremendous book on worship. And in the beginning of this book on worship, he gives many definitions of this important part of the Christian life. It has been our deepest conviction in OM that the first thing we must teach to young people, by the way, we're trying to remain a training work, keeping people for one or two years and then letting them move on. But we are convinced that the main thing we must teach these young people, or try to set the example in, is worship, not evangelism. Evangelism is the spontaneous outflow of the life in tune and in communion with the living God. It's not a matter of projects, crusades, campaigns, weekends, summer outreaches. These things are all right. But evangelism is the spontaneous outflow, seven days a week, from the man who is in tune with God. As we commune with God in the morning, as we walk with Him. I myself like to get out of my little place, wherever I'm living, and go out into the woods, down in Bromley, Kent, one of the most beautiful parts of England. We have lots of woods. No doubt you have lots of these around Manchester as well. I haven't seen them, but no doubt they're here. We didn't have too many in Bolton, where I used to live. But as you walk out into the woods, at least I experience more of the Lord than when I'm somehow tucked in my little room. Doesn't matter, however, use whatever method is good for you. But I am so burdened about this subject. But worship, knowing communion with the Lord, daily. And as we commune with the Lord, as we worship the Lord, whether it's in the woods or in our home, whether it's running or sipping a cup of tea, which I know is the order of events in this nation, and I've, of course, been completely taken into it myself. But worship is the most important thing in your life. I believe in the church today we have mistaken commotion for devotion. We measure too many things by numbers, by height, by width, and not by depth. And I feel that our evangelism, often in our day, and I'm very slow to criticize anyone individually, but I believe that much of our evangelism becomes very, very superficial because it comes from organization, from structure, from planning. Not that I'm against planning, we need planning. But the real evangelism comes from the heart of the man in communion with God. When this man goes out to talk to people, there is a work of the Spirit. As Watchman Nee says in one of his books, there is a release of the Spirit. And so there is the communion of one spirit with another spirit, and this brings conviction of sin. How dare we talk to men about God when we have not talked to God about men? That, of course, is not the primary part of worship, but as we're worshiping the Lord and experiencing the Lord, then soon we find ourself moving on into intercession and to praying for others. And so I leave you this morning with these two great concepts that I believe will lead to realistic, dynamic Christian faith, which I believe all of us must want. First, a total commitment of your life every day. Your time, your talent, your energy, your money, your life, your family, your wife, your children, your job, everything on the altar. It's not easy. Keith Miller in his amazing book, Taste of New Wine, says it's not a once and for all thing. The totally committed Christian life is a life of continually committing to the Lord, that which the Spirit of God reveals to us from our subconscious. You know, I'm so glad that God didn't reveal all of myself to me in my first year being a Christian, because I would have passed out from the sight. And it seems now the more I commune with the Lord and the closer I get to the Lord, the more I see the power of ego in my own life and the subtle sinister ways that self can creep in even to the nicest evangelical activities. God is gracious and doesn't reveal self to us all at once. But slowly, and believe me, as we commit our lives daily, more will be revealed. And as it's revealed, we can take it to the cross and to the blood. And there's the growth. Total commitment every day. Are you doing that? As a definite act of the will? And secondly, making the priority of your life, worship, praising Him, worshipping Him, kissing the feet of Jesus, and knowing what it is to commune with Him. And when that's happening in spirit and truth as it's described in John, then we will discover an evangelism with a depth and a width and a spiritual power that will not be stopped neither in Turkey nor India nor the uttermost parts of the earth. May God give us this threefold spiritual reality in our lives in the days to come. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this little time together. We thank You for the power of Your Word. We thank You for the reality of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and we know He must be Lord. Deliver us, Lord, from belittling this great salvation. Keep us, O God, from tangents. And cause us to know the reality of total and absolute full surrender every day of our life. That we may meet You in the mornings. That we may lay our lives on the altar as we worship You and commune with You. That the impact may be felt throughout the day in a practical dynamic level. That will result, we believe, in world evangelism and in the salvation of precious people all around us. For we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. In the book of Colossians, chapter 2, Colossians chapter 2, verse 2, verse 1. For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you and for them at Laodicea. For as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the knowledgement of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and your steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. This is really the goal of Operation Mobilization, to learn to walk the way of Jesus. It is not firstly going across the English Channel to sell a book or to give out a tract or even to start a church. It is not firstly preaching to thousands of people from a ship or from a truck or from anywhere else. It is not firstly, and the word firstly is important, doing many of those things. But it is firstly, walking even as he walked. That is the greatest challenge that could ever be given to any man. Many, many people today, and I do not blame them, are very switched off about religion. In this country, a great segment of people, perhaps 90 percent, are switched off about religion or about the church. Church attendance and statistics rather prove that. I can understand that, because I believe, and I think most would be in agreement, that so often times our Christianity has departed from the basic, simple way of Jesus Christ. We think of his moral teachings, we think of his humility, we think of his life. Who can argue against that? Who can argue against the way of love that Jesus taught? Who can argue against the way of peace that he demonstrated? Who can argue against the humility that flowed from his life? The freedom from prejudice that he manifested. The kindness that was constantly demonstrated by him. And if anything, I think we need to do on OM this year, and perhaps I could recommend it for your study program, is a deep, intensive study of Jesus of Nazareth. Read the Gospels over again and again. Memorize some of the teachings of Jesus. You'll see him as the healer, you'll see him as the comforter. You'll see him when he is stern and his holiness is being demonstrated, like the day he cleared all the money racketeers out of the temple. And I believe the great need for all of us tonight, and this is just really a few words of exhortation, is to see Jesus. I didn't come from a very Christian home. I was a materialist almost from the word go. I thought the world functioned around money and around pleasure. It was only by the mercy of God that when, just shortly before I was going into university, college, that someone sent me a Gospel of John. And in that little Gospel of John, which by the way was from the Pocket Testament League, I saw Jesus Christ. There's so many verses in the Gospel of John that just jump into my mind. Could you look at just quickly a few of them with me? As I read through that book again and again, I joined the Pocket Testament League long before I knew Christ. Promised to carry a New Testament, which I proudly did. Read it every day, which I did, even though it was often one verse. And I had this Pocket Testament League Gospel, which I read. And some of the verses that just leaped out of the page, spoke of Jesus. I'd like to just leave them with you tonight. Because, you see, we're commanded as believers. Most, if not all of us here are believers. We know Christ. And we're commanded to walk as he walked. One of the verses that jumped out at me was John 1.12. But as many as receive him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. There we find the power for this walk, isn't it? It's in Christ. It's not your effort, your discipline. It's Christ. Christ's power in you. Another verse that really spoke to me was verse 17. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. It's a walk of grace. It's a walk of truth. And then verse 29. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. You know, as we read our newspapers, it can be extremely depressing. For some people, it's almost overwhelming. In fact, in this country today, these islands, one out of every nine women spends part of her life in a mental institution. Our society has become so complex, so pressurized, that it's wonder anybody is sane anymore. You don't know what's going to happen. I had a very interesting experience just the other day when I went down toward Beckenham in a train, and it rained, and somehow I left my briefcase under the bridge. I didn't get back until 40 minutes later. And there it stood. People in a distance, watching it. Police on their way. That's right. This is Britain. What's next? And it's the same all over the world. And I believe, as hard as it is for many of us to accept this, it's the sin problem. It's the old problem of man and his sin. That man, as dignified as he becomes, even if he becomes the president of a great nation, is a sinner who cannot help himself, and eventually his sins will find him out. Just read your newspapers. And if you think that is something new in history, obviously you've never studied history. Nothing is new under the sun. Man is a sinner. He's selfish and he needs help. And it's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Well, I'm not going to take much more time, but as you go through the Gospel, you'll see Jesus as the light of the world. You'll see Jesus as the way. You'll see Jesus as the bread of life, and giving the bread of life. You'll see Jesus as the door. You'll see Jesus on every page. On every page. And this is what this movement is about. We're not interested in starting our own little church. It's becoming another denomination. We only want young people to stay with us generally for a year or two, then go back home. Most cases take up normal work. We don't believe in sort of pressurizing everybody, they must be a foreign missionary. We know some will be led to that. But most will be led to go home, to take up ordinary jobs. But we believe, and it is our prayer that after being in this training program, and getting day by day into the Word of God, being in a team, under a leader, who believes and is trained in these things, that those who go away from OM after a year or two, will walk, even as He walked. Isn't that the greatest challenge? To love as He loved, to give as He gave, to be unselfish as He was unselfish, to reach out to people as He reached out to people. Remember, He was a carpenter. I believe the greatest challenge for youth today in this world of hate, of unrest, when so many are trying to find the answer in drugs, or in sex, or in so many other things, I believe the answer is to Jesus Christ. I don't know if there's any parent here tonight that may not be happy about their child being on OM. I can understand that. I have a son of 12. I'm not so sure I want him to join OM. So I can understand that. But you know, when I think back on my own life, and I think of the fact that my parents stood behind me when I got involved in the things of Christ, I can just praise it. Little did they know at that time that if God had not reached into my life, I may have been a New York gangster, or a lot worse. You may not be happy with your child on OM. But as you look around what so many young people are doing today, how you should praise God that your child wants to follow Jesus, the man of Galilee. I believe that's the greatest challenge in all the world. And there's nothing greater than seeing not just a young person, but whole families following Jesus together. That's the highest calling in this life, which by the way will soon be passed. Soon be passed. Let us pray. Our God and Father, there's so much more we could say tonight. But above all, we simply need to see Jesus as the way, as the truth, as the life. We thank you for the gospel, the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. And Lord, deliver all of us from making it too complicated. We would see Jesus, Lord. We would walk even as He walked. Oh Lord, do not let us deny and betray the revolution that He began by walking inconsistently. We pray for this world in which we live, for our government leaders, Mr. Heath, Mr. Nixon, Mr. Pompidou, Mr. Bront, Golda Meir, King Hussein, Sadat, Indira Gandhi, hosts of other men and women, that they may lead their countries righteously, that there may be peace on the earth. Meanwhile, we thank you, God, that there's peace, sweet peace, in our hearts because of Jesus, who lives in all those who have turned to Him by faith. We worship you and praise you tonight through Jesus Christ, Amen. But that there may be another voice and that our hearts may be willing to respond. And we just give you the praise in Jesus' name. Amen. It's encouraging that God is working and that God is doing something in this generation, in this decade. And it's encouraging to see also the young and the old able to work together a little better than I think they were 15 years ago. And people learning to be a little more flexible. And this is encouraging the youth and enabling them to stick around and it's not killing too many of the older ones in the process. Well, that's another message that I will give this morning. Romans chapter 12. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ and every one member is one of another. And then we go on about various gifts. This is probably my favorite passage of Scripture, certainly among the top ten passages that have been such an enormous challenge in my own life. To give you just a half or a few moments of my background, which I feel helps people understand what I feebly want to try to communicate. And it is one thing to say something, it's another thing to communicate something. But I come from a non-Christian background. My grandfather from Holland was an atheist. My father also from Holland was a materialist. My other grandfather from Glasgow was an alcoholic. And I was reared in a materialistic home in New Jersey and did not know Christ until the age just before I became 17. That happened in a Billy Graham meeting in Madison Square Garden where I went mainly out of curiosity, though partly because someone had given me a Gospel of John and it promoted some hunger in my heart for God. And I was converted to Christ that night. I was not properly followed up on. There was a circus in the bottom of Madison Square Garden, in the basement, which they usually use as the counseling room. And so there was no counseling. I went back to a liberal church, which I knew was screwy the moment I was converted. But I didn't have any proper follow-up work. Billy Graham, as you know, is viciously attacked. Not too many attack him to his face. They prefer to do it behind his back, especially after he leaves. But he is strongly attacked for not doing proper follow-up. But I can tell you, the follow-up work, first of all, is really the work of the local church, not the visiting evangelist. And secondly, even when the church fails, the Holy Spirit doesn't. And God's Spirit, striving with my spirit, led me on in the faith, and especially through Christian books and through a correspondence course that I managed to get into due to a letter that Billy Graham sent me, just a form letter. And so I thank God for the ministry of this man and I thank God for salvation. This is still the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I've had many experiences with the Lord, but there's no greater experience than salvation. You know, we live in a day when many believers are belittling the work of salvation. And I was impressed listening to A.W. Tozer. I don't agree with all his theology, but I certainly agree with most of his spiritual principles. He is a man who has sort of a Wesley idea about a second blessing, and so it's very interesting what he said. Most of you probably don't have that particular belief. I don't, actually. But it's interesting what he said. In strongly attacking people who try to oversell a second blessing package, he says the danger is so often they belittle salvation and make it almost nothing in order to oversell a second blessing or whatever other blessing really you want to add on to it. And I believe this is a danger among people who have strong convictions about other experiences that take place in the Christian life. And to me, God is just so great that He's always breaking in, really, despite many of our viewpoints. But there is a danger today, really, of underestimating salvation, underestimating what happens to a man when he's born again. Tozer went on in this particular tape that I was listening to, explaining how really most people now don't really expect anything to happen when you're born again. Isn't it true? You know, sure, there'll be a little interest in going to church and a little interest in reading your Bible, and, you know, I mean, a little bit of love will begin to come in your life, and you may not swear quite as much and lose your patience quite as much. And there's a danger of belittling this great work of grace, salvation. And there is no other blessing, and I'll say this to people, whatever their theology, than the blessing of salvation, because at salvation, Jesus Christ comes to indwell the believer. This is a very big thing. And personally, I'm convinced that many people looking for a second or a third or a fourth blessing may never have had the first one, and never, never have yet really been born again. The Bible says as many as receive Him, to them He gives power to become the sons of God. That is no small matter, my beloved brethren. That is a big thing. That is a revolutionary thing. And this is really the only reason I'm still here today, for though I may have had many other experiences with the Lord, this experience of salvation is the biggest and the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. This is why I'm linked so closely around the world with those who gather around the Lord's table on Sunday, because I feel it's a time when we lay aside other things, even good things, and refocus in on what Jesus Christ has done for us, and all that we have in Him. We have so much in Him. And I feel that many of us are crippled in our spiritual life simply because we have not yet appropriated that which we already have. We have so much in Jesus Christ, and every one of us here has probably heard many messages on all that we have in Jesus Christ. But I believe this passage reveals why many of us are not availing ourselves of all that we already have in Jesus Christ. And I put it in very simple terms. It's perhaps known as the message I preach on the most. It's simply this subject of commitment. Total commitment. And I believe this passage is one of the clarion calls to full surrender. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. It has become my theological belief and the practice of my life to commit my life afresh every day to God. I try to take the first hour or hour and a half, and sometimes in a race only a half an hour, each morning, after a little exercise and making sure I'm awake, to commit myself to God. To me, the morning quiet time, the morning devotional time, which is so essential, especially in this day where there's so much pressure upon us, I believe is a time of recommitment. And I'm here not to ask you whether you have committed your life to Christ ten years ago or two years ago, but I would like to ask you whether you are having the experience of daily laying your life on the altar. Every day. Seven days a week. I believe that if Christians would do this, if every day by an act of their will they would lay their life on the altar, I believe they would begin to see things in their own life that they would never dream of. There's a great danger among us that we relegate, for example, reality and worship to a once-a-week experience. Tozer, in one of his books, says that worship is the missing jewel of the evangelical church, and it's true. I'd love to send you a book as a gift. A book by Mr. Gibbs from the assemblies, I believe, in Australia called Worship. It's a rather thick book, the kind of book the average person doesn't read anymore because they've been too brainwashed into having everything short and sweet and instant. But if you do still believe in reading and are not illiterate, I would recommend this tremendous book of Worship. And in the beginning of this book of Worship, he gives many definitions of this important part of the Christian life. It has been our deepest conviction in OM that the first thing we must teach to young people, by the way, we're trying to remain a training work, keeping people for one or two years and then letting them move on. But we are convinced that the main thing we must teach these young people or try to set the example in is worship, not evangelism. Evangelism is the spontaneous outflow of the life in tune and in communion with the living God. It's not a matter of projects, crusades, campaigns, weekends, summer outreaches. These things are all right. But evangelism is the spontaneous outflow seven days a week from the man who is in tune with God. As we commune with God in the morning, as we walk with Him. I myself like to get out of my little place wherever I'm living and go out into the woods down in Bromley, Kent, one of the most beautiful parts of England. We have lots of woods. No doubt you have lots of these around Manchester as well. I haven't seen them, but no doubt they're here. We didn't have too many in Bolton where I used to live. But as you walk out into the woods, at least I experience more of the Lord than when I'm somehow tucked in my little room. It doesn't matter, however. Use whatever method is good for you. But I am so burdened about this subject. Worship. Knowing communion with the Lord. Daily. And as we commune with the Lord, as we worship the Lord, whether it's in the woods or in our home, whether it's running or sipping a cup of tea, which I know is the order of events in this nation, and I've of course been completely taken into it myself. But worship is the most important thing in your life. I believe in the church today we have mistaken commotion for devotion. We measure too many things by numbers, by height, by width, and not by depth. And I feel that our evangelism often in our day, and I'm very slow to criticize anyone individually, but I believe that much of our evangelism becomes very, very superficial because it comes from organization, from structure, from planning. Not that I'm against planning. We need planning. But the real evangelism comes from the heart of the man in communion with God. When this man goes out to talk to people, there is a work of the Spirit. As Watchman Nee says in one of his books, there is a release of the Spirit. And so there is the communion of one spirit with another spirit, and this brings conviction of sin. How dare we talk to men about God when we have not talked to God about men? That, of course, is not the primary part of worship, but as we're worshiping the Lord and experiencing the Lord, then soon we find ourselves moving on into intercession and to praying for others. And so I leave you this morning with these two great concepts that I believe will lead to realistic, dynamic Christian faith, which I believe all of us must want. First, a total commitment of your life every day. Your time, your talent, your energy, your money, your life, your family, your wife, your children, your job, everything on the altar. It's not easy. Keith Miller, in his amazing book, Taste of New Wine, says it's not a once and for all thing. The totally commissioned Christian life, totally committed Christian life, is a life of continually committing to the Lord that which the Spirit of God reveals to us from our subconscious. You know, I'm so glad that God didn't reveal all of myself to me in my first year being a Christian because I would have passed out from the sight. And it seems now the more I commune with the Lord and the closer I get to the Lord, the more I see the power of ego in my own life and the subtle, sinister ways that self can creep in even to the nicest evangelical activities. And God is gracious and doesn't reveal self to us all at once. But slowly, and believe me, as we commit our lives daily, more will be revealed. And as it's revealed, we can take it to the cross and to the blood. And there's the growth. Total commitment every day. Are you doing that? As a definite act of the will. And secondly, making the priority of your life. Worship. Praising Him. Worshipping Him. Kissing the feet of Jesus. And knowing what it is to commune with Him. And when that's happening in spirit and truth, as it's described in John, then we will discover an evangelism with a depth and a width and a spiritual power that will not be stopped neither in Turkey nor India nor the uttermost parts of the earth. May God give us this threefold spiritual reality in our lives in the days to come. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this little time together. We thank You for the power of Your Word. We thank You for the reality of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and we know He must be Lord. Deliver us, Lord, from belittling this great salvation. Keep us, O God, from tangents. And cause us to know the reality of total and absolute full surrender every day of our life. That we may meet You in the mornings. That we may lay our lives on the altar as we worship You and commune with You. That the impact may be felt throughout the day in a practical dynamic level. That will result, we believe, in world evangelism and in the salvation of precious people all around us. For we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Worship - Power in the Church
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George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.