What does First B Jackson teach about worship?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on worship starts with the conviction that it is far larger than music. Pastor Brian opened a 2016 message by noting that most people in church circles hear the word 'worship' and think of music, and that is not wrong, but it is far too small. Drawing on the Greek word proskuneo and tracing it through Matthew's gospel, he showed that worship means bowing before someone of greater standing and then giving, the way the wise men fell down before Jesus and opened their treasures. The word Jesus used when he told Satan 'You shall worship the Lord your God,' Pastor Brian explained, actually pairs proskuneo with a second word, latreo, which carries the sense of active, obedient service. Worship is not only something expressed in a song; it is something expressed in a life.
Ray brought a similar weight to Psalm 92, a psalm written for the Sabbath, and framed it around a decision rather than a feeling. Praising God in the midst of hard circumstances, he told the congregation, is the best counsel he can offer anyone, because God is working even when we cannot see it. He wove in what he had already been saying that same week in pastoral conversations: find a place where you can worship, and then actually do it. The psalm sets two paths before the reader, tireless praise or heedless arrogance, and Ray pressed the congregation to choose the first one deliberately.
Steve Baldock, one of the church's elders, brought this down to Sunday morning practice. He proposed a shift in mental picture: instead of arriving as an audience watching presenters, come as a presenter with God and the heavenly host as the audience. That reframe, he said, changes everything about how a person engages with a service. He also walked through the habit of coming a few minutes early to pray through the room, and said that when it is time to sing, the congregation's job is simply to mean it. Carl's 2016 message on Romans 12 added the foundation underneath all of this: offering yourself to God is not compulsion, it is a reasonable response to mercy already given, made possible not by willpower but by the Spirit renewing the way a person thinks.
Taught from Psalm 92 · Romans 12:1-2 · 1 Peter 2:4-5 · John 4:19-24 · Matthew 4:8-11
The passage taught · 2 Peter 3
1 This is now, beloved, the second letter that I have written to you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by reminding you;
2 that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior:
3 knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts,
4 and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- February 25, 2024 It Is Good to Give Thanks to the Lord Pastor Ray preaches Psalm 92, calling the congregation to tireless praise of God each morning and faithful trust in His goodness through every hard circumstance.
- February 25, 2024 It Is Good to Give Thanks to the Lord Pastor Ray walks through Psalm 92, calling the church to tireless praise, honest humility before God, and the unending vitality promised to those rooted in Him.
- January 30, 2022 Living Stones, Active Worshipers Steve Baldock shares practical ways to worship actively at church and build a daily quiet time habit that draws you closer to God each morning.
- August 28, 2016 Offer Yourselves: A Reasonable Response Carl walks through Romans 12:1-2, asking why believers should offer themselves to God and how it happens, grounding the answer in the mercies listed throughout Romans.
- January 10, 2016 What Comes Into Our Minds When We Think About God A Wyoming pastor walks through worship in Matthew's gospel, showing that true worship is more than music. It includes obedience, petition, forgiveness and how we live.
Mentioned along the way
- February 18, 2015 Filled Up to All the Fullness of God Paul prays for the inner person in Ephesians 3, asking that God's power, love, and fullness would transform believers from the inside out into lives of worship.