The Act of Worship
Psalm 29:2
Intro
A young man came to his parents one day and informed them that he would start to receive his meals at the dinner table but would take them back to his room.
The father, quickly informed him of his nice try, but they would be eating all their meals together as a family, in one room at one table; just like they had been doing for so many years.
The young man replied to his parents, I was just trying to help you all out, so you wouldn’t have to put up with my rolling eyes, deep sighs, and the other stuff you don’t like.
The father informed his son, that they would find some way to survive all that somehow. The dinner table attendance is an absolute, not an option, for this family.
The young man was pretty upset by his new policy being put down, but the point is that some things are just right – such as families spending a certain amount of time together.
The father had it right. The family dinner table is one of life’s longstanding cross-cultural traditions for a reason: It’s simply the right thing to do. I could list many other things that fall under that category also. For instance, I know that I must share my faith. I might do so with strangers on an airplane, or I might do so through inviting some neighborhood friends to a get-together. But Jesus has commanded me to spread the gospel, so I won’t opt out.
Worship is another example. Like family life, it should be enjoyable. It should feel us and mature us, preparing us for life and leaving its stamp upon us forever. Worship and family life, when done right, are things we would never think to question. We would realize their value and beauty.
So this morning I want us to look at what actually is the art of worship.
I. An Act of Obedience
a. Some people have come to believe that worship is an optional Christian activity.
b. I’ve heard Christians say, “Bible study is the thing for me. I’m not much for singing hymns or mouthing praises. That’s okay for people who go in for that sort of thing, but I’m more of a cerebral person, and I express my faith through studying.”
c. Unfortunately that approach is never set forth in the Scriptures.
i. Throughout the Bible we find that worship is no more an option than eating or breathing.
ii. Stop doing either of those and you’ll die physically.
iii. Stop worshipping and you die spiritually.
iv. If you don’t worship – and I mean truly worship, not simply attend a weekly service – you’ll never experience God.
v. It’s that simple.
d. Imagine trying to make one weekly appointment to do all your breathing.
i. Every Sunday you drive to the local oxygen tank, where you and a group of fellow air breathers talk about the quality of air, encourage each other to be better breathers, sing a few air songs, then do the week’s breathing.
ii. Unfortunately, you’d be gasping for air before you even got out of the parking lot.
iii. Worship in church is essential, but so is your personal, ongoing worship.
iv. You need to take it with you every day.
READ Psalm 29:2
Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name;
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
95:2, 6
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms…
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
96:4,6, 9
For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised;…
Honor and majesty are before Him.
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary…
Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
e. According to the Scriptures, our Lord is to be loved by His creatures with all their hearts, souls, and minds.
i. He is to be praised, blessed, gloried in, rejoiced in, exalted, feared, extolled, and thanked.
ii. The idea is that we worship God with all that we have.
iii. Worship come from obedience and a grateful heart.
f. Worship is not a spectator sport, but rather a contact sport.
i. Each one of us in present to come into contact with the Spirit of God, and our worship happens not simply though hearing, but through being wholly involved in all that goes on as we come before Him.
ii. EXAMPLE: If you’re going swimming, you don’t stand forever at the edge of the pool.
1. Ultimately you dive in.
2. There is no way to swim without using your whole body, unless you want to sink and drown.
3. If you’ve ever tried to swim across a lake or even across the pool, you know that it takes a total commitment of your body, including your eyes, mouth, lungs, arms, and legs.
4. That why swimming offers some of the best physical exercise possible.
5. It used everything you have.
g. Worship takes the same kind of spiritual commitment.
i. Don’t sit on the back pew, dabbing a toe into the deep spiritual waters.
ii. Dive into the presence of God!
h. I believe many or most people worship for what they can get rather than for what they can give.
i. I challenge you to try this the next time you worship, either privately or corporately.
1. Ask God to show you how to give all of yourself to the acts of praise and worship.
2. Tell Him you want to spring off the board into the deep waters of experiencing His awesome presence.
3. Simply bring Him that obedient attitude and ask Him to teach you how to worship with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
4. I guarantee that you will be more refreshed then you ever have been before.
II. An Act of Reverence
a. The word worship come from two words that really mean “worth” and “ship.”
i. The meaning of worship, then, is to give worth back to God, to assign Him His true and proper place.
ii. All of the trouble in the world comes from failing to do that.
iii. Every sin can ultimately be traced to failing to attribute the proper priority and Lordship to God.
b. Interestingly enough, some of the Hebrew and Greek words for worship are derivatives of the ancient practice of bowing to the ground as an outward sign of reverence.
i. That is something that we can do in both body and spirit.
ii. Worship, then, is the proper recognition and celebration of God, returning to Him the glory that He alone deserves and honoring Him with our lives and our words.
READ Revelation 4:10-11
You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created.
c. This passage perhaps, is the ultimate image of worship.
i. We see hear in this passage the twenty four elders present before God, who are probably the representatives of Christ’s church.
1. They are clothed in white, and are wearing crowns.
2. Yet they fall down in reverence and worship before God sitting on His throne.
ii. This magnificent scene is a mental image to engrave into our hearts and minds, and it’s nothing more than choosing to give back to God what He already deserves.
III. An Acknowledgement of Christ’s Sacrifice
a. As we worship today, we sit on this side of the Cross.
i. Compared to those who brought rams for sacrifice, we have a new relationship and a new experience in worship.
ii. We’ve been redeemed by the blood that was shed for us.
iii. We no longer bring an animal – only ourselves.
iv. A priest doesn’t have to be present for us to enter the holy of holies.
v. We can worship in the very presence of God Himself, because Jesus tore away that curtain forever.
b. When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, the two of them began to discuss the proper place of worship.
i. The people were confused on just were was true worship to take place.
ii. Jesus simply answered her in John 4:23, by telling her that a time was coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
iii. That time is now.
iv. All that Jesus went through for us, redefined worship.
c. If we really understand all the depths of the implications of that fact, you and I would see worship in a brand new way – we would see it as a celebration.
i. It is a emblem of great news
ii. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
iii. We often think of worship in tones of dignity, somber faces, and dark sanctuaries.
iv. But isn’t it true that worship is, in essence, the celebration of all celebrations?
1. When we get engaged for marriage, we throw a party.
2. When we graduate from school, we invite all our friends over to celebrate with us.
3. When we’re given the news that all our sins of yesterday and today are forgiven and tossed into the sea of forgetfulness by God, is this any less of a reason to celebrate.
4. And yet we worship so often with downcast eyes, mumbled prayers, and absent thoughts.
d. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon described worship as this, “When you speak of Heaven, let your face light up, let it be irradiated with a heavenly gleam, let your eyes shine with reflected glory. But when you speak of Hell – well, then your ordinary face will do.”
e. JOY, needs to be the flag of our worship and we need to raise it higher.
IV. A Reflection of Your Life
a. A professional football player said that his performance on Sunday is a direct reflection of how they’ve practiced all week.
b. Worship is precisely the opposite
i. We live during the week as a reflection of how we are worshiping on Sunday or any other day.
ii. Worship is actually something like the State of the Union address for your life.
iii. It says how you feel about God at this moment in time, and it paves the way for how you will go on to live as a result of it.
READ Romans 12:1
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to god, which is you reasonable
service.”
c. To come and lay ourselves upon God’s altar – body, mind, soul, and spirit – we are saying, “Here I am, Lord! Make me Your instrument.”
d. Could it be that if we turned our faces toward the light of heaven, we would be molded to the image of Christ more swiftly and surely?
e. Could it be that if we finally placed all that we have, all that we aspire, all that we are before God on the altar of worship, that He would return it to us filled with His light and transformed by His glory?
Closing
Let’s not run short on joy. Let’s stock up on it so that our homes, our churches, and our workplaces are overflowing with joy. Let’s drench our everyday lives with joy and the wonder of worship. All we need to do is turn our eyes heavenward – and celebrate what we see.
