A Passionate Pursuit Of God

A PASSIONATE PURSUIT OF GOD

Psalm 100:1-5

S: Worship

C: Pursuing God

Th: A Passionate Pursuit of God

Pr: WE ARE TO PASSIONATELY PURSUE GOD.

?: How?

KW: Ways

TS: In our study of Psalm 100, we will find four ways that demonstrate how to pursue God.

The _____ way is…

I. JOYFULLY (1-2)

II. INTELLIGENTLY (3)

III. MUTUALLY (4)

IV. CONFIDENTLY (5)

PA: How is the change to be observed?

Style:

Expository

Propositional

Version: ESV

RMBC 09 January 05 AM

INTRODUCTION:

Have you ever found worship frustrating?

ILL Worship (Long Service)

Jim Dunn was serving as the pastor of the First Baptist Church, and his wife, Gladys, was very friendly and welcoming to people.

One particular Sunday when the sermon seemed to go on forever, many in the congregation fell asleep.

After the service, to be sociable, she walked up to a very sleepy looking gentleman. In an attempt to revive him from his stupor, she extended her hand in greeting, and said, "Hello, I’m Gladys Dunn."

To which the gentleman replied, "You’re not the only one!"

Well, sometimes, the expectations we have regarding worship are not quite what we were looking for.

We want the service to go one way, and it goes another.

Sometimes even that pastor will get rather long-winded, and we wonder if he is ever going to stop talking.

TRANSITION:

Well…

1. This year, our theme is: “Worship: A Passionate Pursuit of God.”

And during the year, we will be talking a lot about worship and our services.

We will speak about a variety of topics including praise, tithes and offerings, the proclamation of the Word, music, communion, baptism, and prayer.

Next week, we will return to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and begin a three week series on chapter 14.

As a church body, the church in Corinth was guilty of faulty worship.

Their services ended up exalting those who were exercising certain spiritual gifts.

This focus was causing division, instead of unity.

Let us be clear on this…

Worship is not exclusively a church or service issue.

Worship is a matter of the heart.

And throughout the year, we will be giving consideration to worship issues as they apply to both our private and public lives.

As a basic definition…

2. Worship is declaring to God His worth.

It might be more rightly called “worthship.”

We must get this correct.

When we discuss this in the context of our faith, we must remember that worship is not about ourselves.

Worship is about God.

We are doing worship correctly when we are declaring God as worthy of our attention and adoration.

In every way…

3. Worship is worth our effort.

When we have our relationship with God right, and we are truly honoring and glorifying Him, our life comes together – it finds fulfillment.

So worship is worth doing.

This is why…

4. WE ARE TO PASSIONATELY PURSUE GOD.

Worship is about being right with God.

It is knowing that our relationship with Him is all-important and must be pursued with everything we have and are.

Our relationship with God is to be the priority that everything else must fall under.

Everything…

Whatever priorities you have, no matter how important they are, they pale in comparison to the absolute necessity of worship.

So, how do we passionately pursue God?

Well…

5. In our study of Psalm 100, we will find four ways that demonstrate how to pursue God.

OUR STUDY:

I. The first way is JOYFULLY (1-2).

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!

Serve the LORD with gladness!

Come into his presence with singing!

As we see here…

We should worship with enthusiasm.

The shout that is described here is not some indiscriminate noise.

It is a shout of homage and appreciation.

In other words, our worship is mean to be vocal, public, organized and expressive.

You know, many of us that are sports fans are much more expressive about our favorite teams and players than we are about how great God is.

I have never thought this to be a good thing.

Something is backwards…

But the truth is, what we ought to be expressing to God is heart-felt praise.

Daily, we should be coming to God eagerly and adoringly.

It is to be a whole-hearted participation.

We have great reason to do so.

We have good news for the world.

Worship is everyone’s responsibility.

We all are summoned to worship because the whole world belongs to God!

In the second line, the NIV uses the verb worship which is, in my estimation, a rather curious translation that kind of jumps ahead the meaning of the sentence.

The Hebrew word is to serve.

It is a word that speaks of being humble.

It is a word that speaks of responding to someone greater.