iWorship
Part 1: Why iWorship
“To worship God is to ascribe to Him supreme worth, for He alone is worthy.”
-Ralph P. Martin "Worship in the Early Church"
Icebreaker: I heard a cute story the other day about a little boy named Chris. He was going up the steps to a large church. He saw 3 statues of Christian martyrs and he said, “Mom, what are those?” And she said, “Oh, honey, those are Christian saints who dies in the service.” He said, “Which service? 9:40 or 11:00?”
Intro: You know, I think I’ve seen people die in the service before. Haven’t you? Hey, why do we come to church on Sundays, anyway? I mean, really. What do we expect when we come into this building at 10:45? Most Christians don’t have a good answer to that question, or at least not a Biblical one. So for the next 3 weeks, I want us to talk about worship…real worship. True worship. I want us to learn about coming into the presence of God.
-If you look in your notes today, the objective for the next 3 weeks is basically 3-fold. Here’s what I hope for us to do:
Our objective for the next 3 weeks:
1. To examine what the Bible teaches about worship.
2. To deepen our intimacy with God through our worship.
3. To obey God is greater ways, as we learn to express our love through worship.
-Do you think we can do that together? Let’s pray.
(PRAYER)
-Isaiah chapter 6 is where we’ll be in the Bible this morning. It paints a beautiful picture of what true worship looks like.
Scripture: Isaiah 6:1-8
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
-Wow. That passage of Scripture always give me goose bumps. I mean, I read that and I’m like, “Send me! Send me! Send me!” But you know, I have to admit, usually the worship experience in my life isn’t much like Isaiah’s. I mean, let’s just get down to it, here. Isaiah shouted, “Here am I, send me!” But a lot of times when I come into church as a worshipper, I’m more like, “Here am I…oh me.”
-Do you know what I’m talking about? Most of us come to church on Sunday mornings after a really long week of work, or school, or family drama and we don’t feel much like Isaiah. How could we? There are so many other things cluttering our minds that it’s difficult to focus on the one, true Person we worship.
-It’s okay to admit it’s difficult this morning. I can’t give some kind secret formula that will make entering the presence of God easy. But I do think that God gives us a model in Isaiah 6 that shows us the process we need to take in order to experience true worship, not just on Sundays, but everyday.
-You see, when we come to really worship God, he wants to bring us through a process that changes us. Isaiah 6 gives us that process, clearer and more beautiful than any passage of Scripture. So let’s take a closer look at it, verse by verse morning. Let’s explore what Isaiah went through, and what God what’s to take us through when we worship.
The Process of True Worship (Is. 6)
1. God reveals Himself to us. (Vs.1)
Questions:
Statement: God was revealed in a very special way during Isaiah’s worship experience. In fact, in verse 1, it talks about the fact that King Uzziah died. Look at verse 1 again: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord...”
-We tend to skip over that, but it’s very important. It’s important because King Uzziah had been on the throne for decades. He had been a strong king. He had basically been a good king, for the most part. And the people of his kingdom had learned to find security from him. He had been the one in which they had placed their security, their hopes, their dreams, like any country does with a good leader.
-And yet…it was in the year that King Uzziah died…while the people of Israel were feeling the emptiness of a lack of leadership in their country, feeling the void that happens when a good leader is going…it was in that process of emptiness when Isaiah felt a need for something significant to happen and he went to the Temple to worship. And he said, “When I went to worship that day, on the throne was not the king, but God, Himself.
-Here’s why that’s important for you: all significant worship begins by seeing the Lord. In fact, if you don’t see Him, it’s impossible for true worship to take place.
-Let me ask you something: when you come to church, what do you see? Your friends? Your pew? Do you see a worship team? A pastor? Yeah, those things are here, but is that all you see? It’s okay if you leave and say, “Well, the music was great, and the message was inspiring, today!” But did you see the Lord? You see, worship had to being when we focus only on Him. And if we go through an entire service without seeing Him, then we’ve not even begun to truly worship.
-See, the problem is that it is entirely possible to come to church and sing songs about God and hear messages about God and never come face to face with God.
Illustration: There was a guy named Dennis Wise, who was Elvis Presley fan. He wrote an article a few years back about his obsession and here’s what he wrote:
I loved Elvis. I followed him his whole career. I have every album he has recorded and I’ve seen every movie that he’s made. I once even bought some boots, when I was in junior high school that looked like his. My classmates called them ‘fruit boots,’ but I didn’t care. They looked like Elvis. Later, I got a face-lift and a hair contour like his. I’ve won Elvis look-alike contests and wanted him to notice, so I would storm the stage after his concert so he would notice me. I don’t think he ever saw me. I have ticket stubs from the concerts, Elvis clippings form the programs all over the world. I even have some Elvis pillows from Japan. Yeah, Presley was my idol. My only regret was…that I never really saw him. I mean really saw him. Sure, I went to his concerts, but there was no contact. I once even climbed the climbed the walls around Graceland to catch a glimpse of him. And I think it might have been him that AI saw walking through the house as I looked through my binoculars, but I never really saw him. It’s funny, all of the effort I put into following him and I never could seem to get close.
-Here’s the thing: I know people who come to church every Sunday and they sing songs about God and they talk about Him. They can even make great prayer with His name in there. And they listen to message about Him, buy they never really make contact with Him. When Isaiah went into the Temple that day, it was a different day. It wasn’t business as usual. That day, he saw the Lord. And the moment we see the Lord, we being to really come into a worship experience.
True worship always seeks to access God.
2. We realize His holiness. (Vs. 3-4)
-Now, here’s what happens when we see Him:
-Once we see Him, once He reveals Himself to us, we begin to realize and see His holiness. In verses 3 and 4, we see those who are around Him, as they begin to sing about His faithfulness. What do they sing? “Holy, holy, holy.” Why on earth, (or heaven, in this case) would those angels who flew around the throne of God use those words? Why not, “faithful, faithful, faithful?” Why not, “almighty, almighty, almighty?” I mean, he is faithful, right? He is almighty, right? So why would they sing over and over again about His holiness?
-Because they had really seen Him. You see, when we truly worship the Lord, when we truly see Him, we see that He is Holy, and all the other things begin to fade away. There’s a song that we sing sometimes, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” When we really see Him, we see His holiness. And it begins to do a special work in our lives. You know why? Because we live in such an unholy, unhealthy world. It’s like a magnet. It begins to draw us up when we begin to see Him. And we begin to see Him as a holy, righteous, just God. There’s something that just takes us and makes us want to lift ourselves up to where He is because everything else that we in life is so disappointing and so discouraging and so dismal and so dirty and so trashy.
-And all of the sudden as Isaiah looked upon Him and heard the angels saying, “Look at God, He is holy, holy, holy.” I love it when we sing that song. Aren’t there times when you just want to go to your knees and say, “God, only you are holy. You’re the only one worth to be praised. Everything else in life is disappointing. Everything else in life is fleeting. Everything else in life pulls me down.” But when we see the holiness of God, there is something that just lifts our spirits up to Him and makes us want to be like Him. That is worship.
3. We recognize our sinfulness. (Vs. 5)
As soon as Isaiah saw a holy God, do you know what He did? He said, “Woe is me, I am ruined!” When we see the holiness of God, when we know that we’re close to God in worship, we see our sinfulness. All of the sudden, we see our inadequacy. All of the sudden, we realize it’s true that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of the sudden, we realize that means us. We realize how woefully short we fall of God’s standard of holiness.
-You see, there’s something about coming into the presence of God that humbles us. It causes us to say, “Wait a minute, I really don’t have all the answers. I really don’t know everything. I really don’t fly as high as I pretend to fly. I really don’t have this whole Christian thing down as good as people think I do.” And what happened to Isaiah happens to us. It begins to melt us and then what happens is we begin to confess that sin.
True worship abandons whatever offends God.
4. Our perspective is renewed. (Vs. 6-7)
-And as we being to recognize our sinfulness, our perspective begins to change. There’s renewal of our mind that takes place. Our minds and our hearts start to turn to a higher plane of thinking. You know, if worship does anything to us, you know what it does? It lifts us up to a higher plane. It has a tendency to lift us up above all the other areas of our life. It’s so easy to just walk into the sanctuary and Sunday morning and be so consumed mentally with our job and our kids and our bills and everything else. It’s so easy for us to walk in and let all of those other thoughts begin to have control of our mind. But when we focus on Him, He beings to lift us up. And when He begins to lift us up, we begin to lift His name up and guess what happens? We begin to be lifted up above those jobs and those bills and those heartaches and those broken relationships. And all of the sudden we say, “Yes, Lord, YOU are Lord over my relationships. YOU are Lord over my finances. YOU are Lord over my job. YOU are Lord over my health. YOU are Lord over me. YOU are Lord over this church. YOU are Lord over this community. YOU are Lord over EVERYTHING.
True worship adjusts our attitude toward God.
5. We respond by giving our lives. (Vs. 8)
-And finally, after we see God, I want to promise you this: the response of true worship is always a commitment to God. If you have worshipped without commitment, you haven’t worshipped. Because, when you and I see God in His fullness, do you know what our first response is? It’s just like Isaiah’s. When did God say to Isaiah? “Who am I going to send?” And what did Isaiah say? “Here am I. Send me!” When we truly worship God, that is always, always, our response. “Lord, use me.” “Lord take me.” “Lord, send me.” “Lord, I’ll do it.” “Lord, I’ll step up.”
-If you come into the presence of God, you’ll make commitments to God because worship turns our heart to servanthood to the one who paid such a price for us that there’s nothing we could ever do to ever pay Him back. That’s why every Sunday, I give you the opportunity to respond to what God is calling you to do in your life. Whether it be coming to an altar, or praying at your seat, or writing something down…whatever it is, it’s an opportunity for our make a commitment to God. To respond in your worship of Him by saying, “Here am I, send me.”
-People, this is why we worship.
True worship advances our walk with God.
Conclusion/Response
-So, will you respond to God, today? What’s He calling you to do? Maybe it’s to let Jesus have control of your life for the first time. Maybe it’s to get back on the right track, spiritually. Maybe it’s to become a better servant by serving in one of our ministries here at church. Whatever He’s calling you to do, respond.
