Loving God Through Worship Series

Psalms 95:1-95:11

1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;

let us shout aloud to the Rock of our

salvation.

2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving

and extol him with music and song.

3 For the LORD is the great God,

the great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,

and the mountain peaks belong to him.

5 The sea is his, for he made it,

and his hands formed the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down in worship,

let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;

7 for he is our God

and we are the people of his pasture,

the flock under his care.

Today, if only you would hear his voice,

8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at

Meribah,

as you did that day at Massah b in the

wilderness,

9where your ancestors tested me;

they tried me, though they had seen what

I did.

10 For forty years I was angry with that

generation;

I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go

astray,

and they have not known my ways.’

11 So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

Loving God Through Worship

But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 God is [a]spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” – John 4:23,24 NASB

How Can We Give God The Worship He Desires?

What Worship Is Not:

1. ENTERTAINMENT

2. THERAPY

3. EVANGELISM

What Is Worship In Spirit And Truth:

1. Equal parts INTELLECT and EMOTION

2. Equal parts INTENT and MOTIVE

3. Equal parts INSPIRATION and GUIDANCE

Gary Thomas, In His Book Sacred Pathways, Identifies Nine Personalities Types That Draw Near To God:

NATURALISTS - when they are outdoors.

SENSATES - when all their senses are engaged

TRADITIONALISTS - in maintaining familiarity

ASCETICS - in solitude and simplicity

ACTIVISTS - when they are battling injustice and evil

CAREGIVERS - through caring for those who hurt

ENTHUSIASTS - by experiencing celebration

CONTEMPLATIVES - through adoration and meditation

INTELLECTUALS - when their mind is fully engaged

God made us for worship. This is why we were created and why he gave us free will, to choose to worship him.

"Our hearts are restless until they rest in him."

- Augustine -

OPENING ILLUS.

An English visitor described football as 22 men in desperate need of rest, being watched by 70,000 people in desperate need of exercise. The NFL estimates that 100 million people watch by television some part of a football game on any given Sunday. Given that 1,696 people make NFL rosters each year, that's a ratio of 60,864 fans per player. Watching every mistake, every penalty. Every fan sure he or she could do it better.

We can afford to be spectators in some areas of our lives—but not with our souls.

Why worship matters

Love must be a choice. God made us to make this choice.

A.W. Tozer said, “Worship is the missing jewel of the church.”

Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, said, “Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God – it whets our appetite.

And God deserves our worship. We love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:10). He created and redeemed us, and made us a place in his perfect heaven forever. He watched his Son die on our cross, to save our souls and purchase our salvation. He gave everything for us. He deserves our worship.

When did he last receive yours?

Someone once said, “We have become a generation of people who worship our work, work at our play and play at our worship.”

In Psalm 95 we find seven elements of worship and I have put these into an acrostic spelling out the word W.O.R.S.H.I.P. in order to help make them more memorable.

W – WORSHIP GOD ON HIS TERMS.

O – OVERFLOW WITH GOD’S PRAISE.

R – Reflection on God’s qualities

S – Submission SUBMIT TO GOD AS HIS POSSESSION.

H – Hear HEAR GOD’S PROCLAMATION.

I – Inspire IMPLEMENT GOD’S PLAN.

P – Proclaim PREPARE YOUR HEART TO ENTER GOD’S PRESENCE.

CONCLUSION:

A parable is told of a community of ducks waddling off to duck church one Sunday to hear their duck preacher. After they waddled into the duck sanctuary, the service began and the duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly.

He pounded the pulpit with his beak and said, “With these wings, there is nowhere we ducks can not go! There is no God-given task we ducks cannot accomplish! With these wings we no longer need walk through life. We can soar high in the sky!”