Celebrate!
Isaiah 6:1-8
We all do it. Every day, all day long, everywhere you go, you do it. I do it, your parents did it and their parents did it as well. Whether you consider yourself that kind of person or not, you still do it. What is it? Worship. We cannot help but worship…..something. It’s what you and I were made to do. Should a person choose not to give God the worship of their life, you’ll still worship something. In it’s simplest terms, worship is our response to what we value most. That’s why worship is something that we all do and what we’re about each and every day. Worship is about the thing you put first in your life. It might be a relationship, a dream, friends, status, stuff, a position, or a pleasure of some sort. What you worship is the thing which matters most to you and as a result, it determines your actions and becomes a driving force in all you do. Don’t know what you worship? Follow the trail of your time, your affection, your passion, your energy, your money and your loyalty. At the end is a throne and on that throne is what matters most to you.
We all worship something because God created us for worship. Specifically, we were created to worship God. It’s one reason our first strategy in “Connecting diverse communities to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus” is worship because we were meant to worship God.
But what is true worship? First, true worship is something that happens in the midst of life. Isaiah begins with an interesting statement. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.” It’s like saying, “In the year that Kennedy was assassinated, I worshipped God.” That’s like saying, In the year of the sniper in New Orleans, I worshipped God. In the year of Hurricane Katrina, I worshipped God. In the year that I was married, in the year that my children were born, in the year my dad died, in the middle of life, in the midst of experiences good and bad, I worshiped the Lord. Worship in the sanctuary can never be separated from what is happening out there. Why do we worship God? It is not to escape life out there, it is to deal with life out there. If you want your worship inside the Sanctuary to be true worship, then you bring in with you all of the baggage of what is happening out in the world. The Psalmist wrote, (Ps 86:6-7), “Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer me.” It is a natural part of worship to bring with you the concerns of your life. We gather here and we bring in our fears, our worries, and our concerns and we lift them up in prayer seeking God’s comfort and guidance. Why do we worship God? Because our lives are so full of concerns and issues that we have to have some place to take them and share them with someone who is greater than us and our problems.
Second, worship gets your focus on God. Here’s the mistake many of us make when it comes to worship. We assume that worship focuses on us. How many of you have heard people say they just aren’t being fed in worship in their church. Too often we think that worship is about us and our needs. But worship by it’s very definition is worth-ship, coming to show God he is worthy of our thanks and praise. Worship has never been about us, it’s about God! But I never, ever hear people say anything about whether or not God is being blessed in the worship service. I never hear anyone concerned about whether or not GOD is enjoying worship. Why do we worship? Many people worship so that they can get something out of the experience, when we ought to worship primarily so that God gets something out of it. And until God gets something out of our worship, we never will. Until God is blessed by our worship, we won’t be blessed. Until God is fed by our sacrifice of worship, we will never be fed. Worship is about God. What is most important is that God enjoy the worship experience. We are here to worship HIM. We are here to bless HIM. True worship always focuses on God.
The problem is that too many of us are taught and conditioned by our culture to focus on ourselves. Worship seeks to focus our attention and ourselves on God. There are too many things which seek to garner our attention and gain our affection in this world. That’s why we need time each week to re-focus on God. It enables us to re-center and refocus ourselves on the One whom we were created to worship. Worship focuses us on God in our lives by expressing thanksgiving for the blessings we enjoy. We need to express our gratitude because if we don’t then we’ll begin to take it for granted. When good things happen to us we need to be thankful to the one who gives us the good things and when bad things happen we need to come to Him and acknowledge that He is big enough to take care of our problems, rather than trying to solve it ourselves.
We also need to express that God is worthy of our praise – that He is worthy of our attention – that He is worthy of our time. Revelation 4:11 says, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being." Worship reminds us that God is worthy of our time, our affection, our passion, our energy, and our loyalty.
Third, true worship increases our understanding of God. Every relationship grows with time. The more time you spend with someone, the better you get to know them. Time in worship and praise builds our relationship with God and our understanding of Him. Praise God for what He has done for you. Understand that God is loving. Praise God for what He will do for you. Understand that God is trustworthy. Praise God for the blessing you have. Understand that God is good. Praise God for the needs you have and understand that God is able. Praise God from whom all blessing flow. Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above the heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Fourth, worship helps build your confidence in God. “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength…” Ephesians 1:18-19 Hope leads to confidence. A life without confidence is a life without hope. As Christians, our hope is not in the world for the world will always let you down. Our hope is not in the things of this world because things are finite in nature. Our hope is not even in ourselves because we know we are imperfect. The only hope we have is in God our Creator and Jesus Christ, His son who was raised from the dead. In that one event, God defeated death. And so we have confidence in this life and confidence leads to a life boldly lived for God. When we worship, we are not only reminded of the hope we have in Christ Jesus but the confidence we have that “…with God, all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26
Fifth, worship helps us experience God. Worship is a verb. Worship is something you do. It isn’t something you watch. It isn’t something you attend like a concert or a movie. Worship is something you enter into. Worship is a participation sport in a spectator culture. The Psalmist calls us to shout to the Lord, sing a new song, dance before him, clap your hands, bow down, lift up your heads, stand in awe, meditate on His truth, walk in his ways, still your heart, cast down your idols, run to Him, make a loud noise, lift up your hands, seek his face, clash the symbols and praise him with trumpet. True worship is a whole life response to God’s greatness and glory, sparked by the presence of God. This is what moved Isaiah to worship because he didn’t just hear about God in worship, he experienced the presence of God. Worship is an experience that taps our mind, our soul, our heart and all of our strength. It’s a place where not only do we give all of ourselves to Him but we experience God.
Sixth, worship brings us to an awareness of God’s holiness. We’ve lost something of that in our worship services. There was a time when people were so aware of God’s holiness that the very churches themselves were being constructed in ways to emphasize the awesomeness of God. It is difficult to walk into one of the cathedrals of Europe built centuries ago without feeling awe and wonder. The quiet, the slight aroma of incense or candles, the artistry of stained glass windows and classical music moves one to acknowledge awe and wonder. In recent years, theology and worship have emphasized the personal nature of God, the love of God, and joy of God to such a degree that for some reason we’ve forgotten that our God is also an awesome God. We have portrayed God as a best friend or someone to pal around with and have forgotten that God is such an awesome and holy God that to be in His presence is to be filled with wonder. When Moses was aware of God’s presence in the burning bush, he removed his shoes because he knew this was holy ground. When Jacob had a dream of a ladder to heaven, he woke up and said, “Surely the Lord is present and I didn’t know it.” And the Bible says he was filled with awe. Time and again, when people are aware of the presence of God, the Bible describes the experience as one filled with awe and even fear. That is why the Scriptures call us to “stand in awe of God” because He is holy, and His holiness demands our attention.
Seventh, worship helps us understand our sin and our need for God’s forgiveness. As the heavenly beings sing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory" Isaiah cries out, “Woe to me!” It is in the presence of God’s holiness, that Isaiah recognizes his own sinfulness. You cannot come into the presence of God without becoming aware of God’s holiness, and our own unholiness. It is impossible to approach His presence without being aware of our own sins. Here is the Good News: our confession always results in God’s forgiveness. When Isaiah becomes aware of God’s holiness, he becomes aware of his own sinfulness and is moved to confess that sin. That confession leads to the forgiveness of sins, symbolized by a hot coal touching his lips as a gesture. It is a cleansing process getting rid of our impurities which then allows him to speak for God as one of his prophets. In I John 1:8-9, we are told, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our faults, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness.” Why do we worship? You are be able to experience that forgiveness. We need to hear the same message Isaiah heard. “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
Eighth, worship always ends in a response. Worship at its best, always motivates the worshipper respond. In the Christian life, one cannot worship without a response. Worship is never passive but always participatory. And our worship is not confined to this hour in Sunday mornings. We are called to offer his hour to worship, but also our entire lives. Rom. 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers (and sisters), in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.” After Isaiah hears the word of God proclaimed, he then hears God saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And what follows then is Isaiah’s response, "Here am I. Send me!" True worship will always result in a response, not just in the service but when we leave the service and go into the world. We cannot enter the sanctuary to worship, without departing to go do something for God.
We came in here, in part, to be challenged to do something out there. The real question is what will we do when we leave this place of worship. For the prophet Isaiah, he was sent out to speak a message to the people. But what are we sent out to do? What is God calling you to do this week? Who is God calling you to love? Who is it in your community that you need to reach out to a little harder? Who is it that you know of who is not coming to worship who should be invited to come worship? Worship is about discovering what God calling us to do. That is a hard question to answer, but it is one that we come in here each week seeking to answer. What God calls us to do from one week to the next may change, but may our response always be that of Isaiah’s -- “Here I am Lord, send me.”
We celebrate as a part of our strategy of “Connecting diverse communities to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus” because worshiping God is the purpose of our life. People need to be refocused on God, to grow in their understanding of and confidence in God. They desperately need to experience God to know that He is real and in that experience understand their own sinfulness and need for God’s forgiveness. But most of all, they need to respond to God not just with their confession of God but with committing and living their whole lives as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God committing themselves to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus” because He is worthy.
