Today’s message title is, "Here I Am To Worship." I love that song! In these short lyrics, we find the true heart of worship.
‘Here I am to worship;
Here I am to bow down;
Here I am to say that
You’re my God!’
The first thing I want you to do this morning is lift both your feet off the ground. If you leave them on the ground, I am afraid I might step on some of your toes, as I am going to talk about some of the things that might be in our hearts.
Sometimes we get so busy doing things in the church, or preaching and teaching on so many subjects that we forget to come back to basics and find out what our real priority should be in the first place.
The number one reason why we should be in church this morning is to simply worship our God. Everything else we do should come after that. As important as preaching is; as important as teaching is; as important as fellowship is; none of these things are as important as worshiping our Lord and Savior.
And so today, I thought it only appropriate to help us start the New Year off right by talking about the importance of worship. I think that true worship would help carry us through the rest of the year, while making it a better year at the same time.
I am going to talk about what I consider to be the three most important parts of worship; the definition of worship, the purpose of worship, and the benefits of worship.
Someone once said, ‘Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God but it sure does whet our appetite.’ Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship; engaging in worship, however, deepens our need for God.
Let’s talk about;
1. THE DEFINITION OF WORSHIP
A man walked up to a vending machine, put in a coin, pressed the buttons labeled, ‘coffee, cream, and sugar.’ No cup appeared, but the nozzles went into action pouring the coffee, cream, and sugar. After the proper amounts had gone down the drain, the machine turned itself off.
‘Now that’s automation,’ he said. ‘This machine takes your money, asks what you want, and then it even drinks it for you.’
That is how some people want their worship. They want to go to church, make a very small deposit in the plate, mumble a few words to a couple songs, and expect everything else to be automatically taken care of. But, there is no such thing as automated worship. Worship requires something very personal; it requires a desire to have a personal relationship with the Lord; the worship of our Lord requires a devotion to Him before it can be considered worship.
In order to know how to properly worship, we must first understand what the definition of ‘worship’ is. Miriam-Webster’s dictionary defines worship as a verb with the following meanings;
···· to give all honor as to a divine being
···· to regard with the greatest of respect, honor, or devotion
The most commonly used Greek word in the New Testament that is used for ’worship’ actually means to "fall face down on the ground in total adoration of."
That is a far cry from what we consider worship today, isn’t it? There is two types of worship; a true worship and a false worship. And I am afraid that sometimes, we end up going through the motions of worship with our hearts focused on other things. That is false worship. Or, sometimes we do the things we do in church out of nothing more than habit, which is also false worship.
MATTHEW 15:7-9 describes what false worship is;
‘You pretenders! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you. He said, ‘These people honor me by what they say, but their hearts are nowhere near me. Their worship doesn’t mean anything to me. They teach nothing but human rules.’
How many Christians, or even churches, are ruled by human rules rather than the change found through Jesus Christ? How many Christians and their churches rely on their time-honored traditions rather than striving to have a true understanding of the principles Jesus taught?
I am not against all traditions, but when they become more important than the heartfelt worship of Christ, they become what the passage I just read describes. And that, too, is a false worship.
I was the pastor of a church years ago where the elders actually came out and said they did not want any change in the church for any reason.
That is what I mean when I say tradition, for tradition sake, hinders any true worship of our Lord. When we focus on anything in this world, even in church, to where it is our primary focus, we have turned our collective backs on Jesus, and that always results in false worship.
Let’s talk about true worship. I like that much better and it gives me peace in my soul.
PSALM 150 talks about true and wonderful worship.
‘Praise the Lord. Praise God in his holy temple. Praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his powerful acts. Praise him because he is greater than anything else.
’Praise him by blowing trumpets. Praise him with harps and lyres, and with tambourines and dancing. Praise him with stringed instruments and flutes. Praise him with clashing cymbals, and clanging cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, and again I say, praise the Lord.’
You worship the Lord in everything you do. When you show disobedience, you worship Him with false worship. You show love and obedience and you worship Him with true worship.
So I will tell you that true worship is when you don’t just go through the motions of singing or listening or even giving. True worship is when you have a longing desire to do these things for only one reason; you love God and you want to please Him more than you want to do anything else. That is true worship, and that is the only kind of worship our Lord accepts.
JOHN 4:23 says,
‘A time has already come when true worshipers will worship the Father in their spirit and in their truth. They are the kind of worshipers the Father is looking for, because true worship is done from the a truthful and Spirit-filled heart.’
Now let’s talk about;
2. THE PURPOSE OF WORSHIP
Many people look at worship and focus on what they are going to get back from what they give. They think if they worship hard enough, or often enough, they will get this emotional high that will make them feel good all over. Kind of a ‘warm fuzzy’ type of experience. That, too, is false worship.
There is nothing wrong from feeling very good after you give God your worship, but to think that you need to feel that way is to expect something back from what you gave. You should never give to God with the expectation of Him repaying you with anything! You should only give to God when you have a deep longing desire to give to Him for no other reason than because you love Him.
Of course, like a loving Father, when you give to Him with the proper heart, He will give a multitude of blessings back to you! But not necessarily when we go to Him expecting something back.
Jesus and His disciples were traveling and He chose to do something every other God-fearing Jew frowned upon; He chose to take the quickest path and go through Samaria rather than take the time to go all the way around it.
In those days, the Samaritans were known as ‘half breeds’, as they were half Jewish and half Gentile. Jews looked down on them and they, in turn, despised Jews.
In JOHN 4:5-9, it tells about Jesus meeting a woman at the well.
‘In Samaria Jesus came to the town called Sychar, which is near Jacob’s well. Jesus was tired from his long trip, so the disciples went into town to purchase food and Jesus sat down beside the well. It was about noon.
’When a Samaritan woman came to the well to get some water, Jesus said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’ The woman said, ‘I am surprised that you would ask me for a drink, since you are a Jewish man and I am a Samaritan woman.’
This woman was in God’s presence, but was so unfocused she didn’t realize it. Many of us have been in God’s presence, too, and just like that woman, we haven’t realized it because we were focused on what was going on in the world around us.
For instance, how many times have we come to the Table of Communion, but instead of worshiping Jesus because of what He did for us, we spend our time thinking about our worries or planned activities?
How many times have we heard a sermon that started touching our hearts, but it made us so uncomfortable we either got angry with the preacher or we started thinking about something else? That happens occasionally, and that is why I asked you first thing to lift your feet off the floor so your toes don’t get stepped on today.
That is also how the Holy Spirit speaks to you; through your heart and through conviction. Next time that happens, rather than get uncomfortable, try to use that as a new kind of worship experience. Try thanking God that He cares enough about you to let His Spirit communicate directly with your spirit. After all, in EPHESIANS we find out that we really are God’s children and members of His household.
This woman at the well was very unfocused, because all she did was think about her own plight. The same is true with the ‘religious type’ people, too. When they spend so much thought and energy keeping everything in their lives and churches the ‘way they have always been’, they totally lose out on the new thing God is trying to teach them about their salvation or eternity. Again; in the presence of God and not even knowing it.
In verses 10-12, we see Jesus gently helping this woman to focus on Him.
Jesus said, ‘If you only knew the free gift of God and who it is that is asking you for water, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’
The woman said, ‘Sir, where will you get this living water? The well is very deep, and you have nothing to get water with. Are you greater than Jacob, our father, who gave us this well and drank from it himself along with his sons and flocks?’
And when she is finally focused on God rather than her own problems, Jesus gives her the information that will, in turn, give her eternal life.
What we worship is always revealed by the way we live. Jesus cut to the heart of the matter and spoke directly about the state of this woman’s life. What was her focus? We don’t really know what it was, but we do know it was not God.
In this conversation, Jesus points out that she has been married multiple times and the man she is living with now is not her husband. Again, what do you think her priorities were? Sex? Security? Acceptance?
In those days, a woman could not get a divorce; only the man could obtain one. So here is a woman who had five men, all thinking she was not worth keeping. What do you think that did to her already low self-esteem?
And the man she was living with when she met Jesus was using her, but didn’t value her enough to actually marry her. What did this woman worship? Did she focus on wanting to be loved and accepted? Did she focus on her need for security? What was it that kept her mind from worshiping God?
There is something else we find in this passage that tells us a great deal about the woman. It was custom in those days for the women to all go for water in the morning hours. But this woman went alone at noon. The implication here is that she was a social outcast. There was something about her that caused both men and women to avoid her when possible, and to make their contact brief when they couldn’t avoid her.
Again, we don’t know why she was like she was, but we do know that her life was like a shipwreck at sea. And she had a totally unfocused mind, just like so many people do today. And an unfocused mind leads to an unfocused life. And an unfocused life leads to an unfocused faith.
Here are the purposes of worship.
···· Worship helps us bring our focus on to God
···· Worship helps us to open our minds to God
···· Worship helps us to make room in our hearts for God
···· Worship makes God personal and real to us
···· Worship helps us make a decision in response to God’s calling
Scripture tells us that when the woman finally realized she was talking to the Messiah, she started craving for the water that fills every thirst. She had forgotten why she came to the well in the first place, and she ran back into town, telling everyone who would listen about Jesus being the Son of God. And many were saved, because this woman’s focus became clear and unclouded.
Now let’s talk about;
3. THE BENEFITS OF WORSHIP
Last week, we had three ladies approach the altar of God in this church because their focus had become razor sharp, and with clarity of mind, they saw their need and felt their desire to have Jesus in their lives.
Everyone is on a different level in their journey of faith. We do not have to reach a certain level before God will reach down to us. He loves us enough to accept us just as we are, as long as we do have faith in Jesus.
We must remember that having focus is not enough, though. When we start focusing on God, His Spirit will touch our spirit. We must remember that when we feel the Spirit of God touch our hearts, we also have to respond to Him.
And when we respond to God’s calling, we start to receive His personal benefits for our lives. But like so many other things, we sometimes know ’what’ to do, we just don’t know ’how’ to do it.
We need to focus on God daily. That is why it is so important to begin every day with a personal talk with God. That means when you wake up, even before you get out of bed, you should be telling God you love Him and are thankful that He loves you. Tell Him how wonderful it is to finally understand the pleasure of just spending time in His company.
So, you start this prayer as soon as you wake up, and then you don’t end it! You say everything but the AMEN. It is important that you try and carry on a running prayer with God all day long. Stay in His presence. You will soon grow so used to Him being with you, that when you notice you haven’t been talking to Him for an hour or so, you will nearly panic, and you will immediately go back into His presence where you feel safe and comfortable.
We should realize that worship comes in many forms. When we sing a song of praise, we are worshiping God. When we pray a prayer of any kind, we are worshiping God. When we give our tithes we are worshiping God. When we help others because we feel good doing so, we are worshiping God. No matter what you do in life, if God is the focus of your love, you are worshiping Him.
One problem Christians have is that we tend to demand that others worship exactly like we do. In truth, God made each one of us to be different. None of us look the same on the outside, and none of us feel the same on the inside.
1 SAMUEL 16:7b reaffirms this.
‘God does not see people the same way people see each other. People look at the outside of a person, but the LORD looks at what is in their hearts.’
Don’t discount a person’s form of worship just because it might be different than how you worship. Try to ascertain what is in their hearts and then love them enough to join in their way of worship.
It is my belief that each group of Christians can be split into three different camps when worship is concerned.
The first camp is filled with Christians who demand that everything they do is kept unchanged. They believe that if it was good enough for grandpa, it should be good enough for them today. The problem with this type of thinking can stop worship in its tracks because it is only self-focused.
If this were really true, we would still be driving grandpa’s car, but we see the need to update our cars and we should see the need to update our stinking thinking and get it back on worshiping our God, and not our traditions.
The second camp is filled with Christians who only like change. If something has stayed the same for more than two weeks, they feel it is time to change it. The problem with this type of approach is that, while some change is good, constant change only creates constant upheaval, and when we have upheaval, it steals our deep focus on Jesus.
The third camp is filled with Christians who see both the need for tradition and the need for change. Change for change sake has nothing to do with worship, just as keeping tradition for no other reason that ‘We have always done it that way’ has nothing to do with worship.
Jesus did not come to change the law, but we see that His ministry was all about change. That tells us that traditions are okay as long as they help us to have a focused worship of God. But if they don’t enhance our true and heartfelt worship, the tradition involved becomes nothing more than a hindrance to our walk with God.
Some traditions should never be changed. Communion, baptism, singing songs of praise, staying in prayer as often as possible are all traditions that need to be kept and focused on, because they all serve to help us focus on our Lord.
A church service needs to be organized, but sometimes we take it to the inth degree. Having everything in church start exactly at the same time each week is a tradition that needs to be thrown out, because it hinders the free-flowing Spirit of God. I know one pastor that starts his service exactly at 10:15 am. He says that if everyone is seated and quiet at 10:10 am, he will stand there in silence for 5 minutes if he has to, just so the service can begin ’properly’. And he says that if he is praying, he keeps an eye on the time so that he can extend the prayer or cut it short, depending on the minutes used. That, my friends, is the ’inth degree.’ And I don’t think that honors our Lord in any way.
Another tradition is having things so controlled that nothing new ever happens. When nothing new or different is allowed in the church, that often keeps the Holy Spirit outside, waiting in the parking lot.
Did you know that in the days of Jesus, when a traveler came through town, he would attend the synagogue meetings, and many times they would let this man speak and teach from the front where the Rabbis sat?
Today, we would never let someone we don’t know get up and tell us what the Bible says, would we? Why not? Because we are control freaks. We feel as if we must be sure that what happens in our church is perfect in every way. Sometimes when we hear God’s Word from another perspective, it finally sinks in!
And if someone speaks in the church, and it turns out to be unbiblical, the pastor walks up and stops it and then that person won’t speak again until they are in correct truth to God. Churches need to be very careful to keep untruth from the church, but they need to also be careful to allow the truth in their church.
I am reminded of the story about how a cowboy ventured right off the range one Sunday and attended church. This was a fine church; one of the town’s best and most influential. And the people wore suits that even Armani couldn’t afford.
The problem is the cowboy walked in with work boots, dust on his jeans, and a good old-fashioned sweat ring around his old straw hat. And as he walked into the church, he instantly became the object of stares and frowns.
After the service, the pastor was out by the door hob-knobbing with the local aristocrats when the cowboy walked by him. The pastor took him aside and told him that if he wanted to come back to this church, he had better go ask God how he was supposed to dress!
The next Sunday, the cowboy came to church again. And he was dressed just like he was the previous Sunday. The pastor saw him come in and went over and demanded to know if he had prayed as instructed. The cowboy said he did go to God about how to dress in this church. The pastor asked him what God had told him. The cowboy said that God didn’t know because He couldn’t ever remember being in this church.
Be careful that everything we do in church really does exalt God and not ourselves. But be free enough not to hinder God as He sends people to our church for His purposes, even if they aren’t exact clones of ourselves.
In order for us to truly experience worship, we must learn to ’let go and let God.’ In other words, when you are in group worship, whether in song or prayer, learn to let the Spirit direct what you do. And then relax and let Him lead.
Too many Christians have never been taught about the urgings of the Holy Spirit. These same Christians don’t want to be the center of attention, so they try their best to sit very properly and act in such a way as to not draw any attention to themselves.
EPHESIANS 4:30 gives us a stern warning that we are not to grieve the Holy Spirit. Why? Because this is God’s personal Spirit, which He gives to you; for you to use.
You will see a few people in this church feel comfortable in raising their hands in holy prayer or when singing praises to Jesus Christ. These people have been touched by the Holy Spirit and are not willing to grieve Him. They are so focused on properly worshiping God with their hearts, they don’t give any thought as to what someone else might think of them. God loves to see people feel that way because only then is it all about God and not about us.
And above all, we should see everything we do as an offering to God. Many people leave a worship service thinking they never got much out of it. These people didn’t have the heart of worship. Their focus was on what they were going to get out of it, not what they were going to give to the Lord.
You will get out of worship what you put into worship. So each time you begin worship, ask yourself if your focus is upward or inward. That is the purpose of worship. We are playing to an audience of One, and that One is not us.
Have you been worshiping this morning? Or have you been doing all the things you normally do while letting your heart focus on something other than showing all your love to God?
Let me ask you another way. You know if you were focused on God as you worshiped today. How would you like God to give you the same kind of time, love, focus, and attention that you are giving Him this morning?
I said that we should never grieve the Holy Spirit, because He is God’s personal Spirit sent to help and encourage us.
If the Holy Spirit is urging you to do something this morning, please do not grieve Him. Respond to Him. Respond to Him by leaving your chair and walking up here to me, as we sing.
INVITATION
