Wired To Worship! Series

What is the one thing that we will do in heaven that we do on Earth? Preaching? disciple-making? Missions? It is worship! Worship is an end in itself, not a means to something else. Meaning, if you only worship God because you get something out of it, then it ceases to be worship because you are only doing it for you. Before we get into what true worship is, let me explain WHY we worship. We worship because we can’t stop worshiping. We were created to worship so the question is not “are you worshipping” but instead “what are you worshipping”. Let’s look at what True Worship is…

I. TRUE WORSHIP IS SOMETHING GOD INITIATES (Isaiah 6:1)

Jeremiah, Jonah, Abraham, Moses (the bush was already burning). Here Isaiah comes to look for God but finds that He is already there. God initiated this encounter. I love how God initiates encounters in scripture…it’s never the same way twice, as if He is saying to us, “I know all of you are different. I know what it will take to get your attention”. I love the way God works. God has interacted with humanity and then recorded it for us, so we could go back and see how He has been working the whole time. This is something we all need to understand, listen to me, bring it on in here, “This verse is a clear statement from God that we don’t invoke the presence of God but instead that God has always been among us”.

Do you walk into this service thinking, “God is already here” or better yet, when leaving your house, “God is within me waiting on me to recognize Him through worship?” Not many do. Many of us come into this building, cold-turkey, waiting for God to hit us with an abundance of ooey-gooey-feelings. If you think that worship is about God giving you good feeling then you have sold worship short of what it truly is intended to be. (Glorify God)

True worship is something that God initiates but for us to truly experience it we must be aware of God’s presence and His supremecy!

II. TRUE WORSHIP DEMANDS WE RECOGNIZE WHO GOD IS (6:1-3)

You need to recognize that God is bigger than you, better than you, and knows more than you. King David started off by recognizing God’s supreme authority in Psalm 24 when he said, “The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.” I am telling you this because God wants you to understand that worship is not about you but instead it is about Him. LOOK, it is not about recharging your battery so you can survive the rest of the week. It’s not about you at all, it’s all about Him and His greatness. Recognizing and worshipping the God who created and sustains all things. When we fail to recognize God’s power in the life of the universe then we fail to recognize His power in the life of the church. Have you ever pondered on the vastness and complexity of our universe?

Scientists know the vastness of the universe. One atheist scientist said this, “If there is a personal God, as the Christians say, who spoke this universe into being, then there is a certain respect and reverence and wonder and dread that would have to come through when they talk about Him and when they worshipped Him”. So let me ask you this is that what people would see if they walked into this place and seen us in “worship”. Would they see a people who were showing respect, reverence, and wonder towards God?

Charles Misner, a scientist who specialized in general relativity theory, said this about Albert Einstein’s skepticism over the church. He said, “The design of the universe…is very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe this is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion, although he strikes me as a basically very religious man. He must have looked at what Christians said about God and felt they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty that they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that religions he’d run across did not have proper respect….for the author of the universe”

What does this worship service look like to people walking into these doors for the first time? What will people say about our worship? Will they say that we love Jesus, know Jesus, and praise His name as our King?

We need to elevate our view of God because how we view God will determine how we live out our lives in worship