We are almost done with this mega series that has been dealing with the Kind of Church Jesus Had in Mind.
We have learned that the church is people who have given their hearts to God through Jesus Christ.
We have learned that we need to be an Evangelizing church, a Learning church and a Loving church.
Today we are going to discuss another part of the WELL, today we will learn that we need to be a worshipping church.
Have you ever met anyone famous?
A lady entered an ice cream store one time in a town that Paul Newman was filming a movie. Paul was also in that ice cream store. She was a huge Paul Newman fan. His blue eyes cause her knees to buckle and she was face to face with him in the ice cream store.
She ordered her ice cream, paid for the ice cream and then left the ice cream shop as her heart was pounding with excitement.
When she got outside she realized that she did not have her ice cream cone with her, so she started back into the store. As she was going back in, Paul was coming out.
He looked at her with his blue eyes and asked, “Are you looking for your ice cream cone?
Unable to speak, she nodded yes.
With that he replied, “You put it in your purse with your change.”
Why is it that when people meet someone famous it makes our pulse race and act kind of strange?
I want you to think about this next question.
When was the last time the presence of God quickened your pulse?
When we are in the presence of God the Father it really does need to take our breath away.
PRAY
Father,
Open my eyes so I can see Your truth.
Open my ears so I can hear Your voice.
Open my minds so I can understand your Word.
And, open my heart so I may receive all that You would have me receive.
AMEN
As we get going here I need you to understand that worship is something that you were created to do.
We have an innate desire within us to worship, be it God or an object or a person or a team or whatever; people worship.
God made us like this so we would worship Him and only Him. All the other items that people worship will fail us, die, or rot. Not God, God is a constant – he was here before the universe, and will be here long after the world as we know it is gone.
Worship has been defined as “the expression of love and devotion to God through participation in Divine rites and/or services and through personal prayer.”
Another definition is “the reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or a sacred object.”
And still another definition is. “the ceremonies, prayers, or other religious forms by which this love is expressed.”
Worshipping God is not a difficult thing to do. Many today like to make worship complicated but it is not.
Let me give you a simple illustration of how easy it is to worship God.
Have you ever eaten at an expensive restaurant? The kind of restaurant you need to dress up to eat at. At that kind of restaurant you are all dressed up you have fine china plates, crystal glasses, three forks, and cloth napkins. You have to be very careful at this restaurant not to spill anything or do anything that might embarrass yourself.
Eating at an expensive restaurant can be uncomfortable.
Compare eating at an expensive restaurant with eating at home.
There you can dress in your comfortable clothes, you only need to use one fork, you don’t have to worry about dropping anything on the floor or doing something that would embarrass yourself.
Eating at home is comfortable.
God’s design for worship is like eating a meal at home. Not something that is uncomfortable with a bunch of things you have to do. He designed worship to be a time to come together in a comfortable setting with your Father.
God desires that we get to those comfortable places of worship because that is where He wants to show up. It is a comfortable time, basking in His glory, sharing in His peace and in His blessings.
So how do we get to those times and to that place? I am glad you asked.
There are many ways for us to worship God the Father.
One way is through music.
There are so many Scriptures in His Word that encourage us to worship Him in song.
1 Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. 2 Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. 3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. 4 For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. Psalm 23:1-4
30 I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69:30
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.
Psalm 95:1-3
And there are more, the Apostle Paul writes these instructions,
“15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:15-17
Worshipping God in such a way is unique to the Christian faith. No other religious group worships their leader the way we do.
Some may chant, some may recite prayers, but no other religion will sing and clap and express adoration and praise the way the church of Jesus does.
While we are on the topic of music in the church, let me address the complaint department. Within the church across the world there are a variety of thoughts about music. Some say that we see too many choruses; some say we sing too may hymns, some like the organ some like the guitar and so on and so forth.
The fact of the matter is that there is a lot of good music that has been written that we can use to worship our God.
Christian artist Larry Norman wrote a song in 1972 entitled “Why should the devil have all the good music.”
It’s true!
Have you ever read some of the titles of the music in the world? My favorite titles have to be country music.
Here is my top ten list of country music song titles…
10. You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille.
9. Her Teeth Was Stained, But Her Heart Was Pure.
8. I'm So miserable Without You, It's Like Having You Here.
7. You ain’t much fun since I quit drinking.
6. I would kiss you through a screen door but I’d strain our love.
5. I wouldn’t take her to a dog fight, even if I thought she could win.
4. I went back to my fourth wife for a third time and gave her a second chance to make a first class fool out of me.
3. Mama get the hammer, there’s a fly on papa’s head.
2. If my nose was running money, honey, I’d blow it all on you.
1. You’re the reason our kids are ugly.
Why should the devil have all the good music?
Let me explain to you the difference between a hymn and a praise chorus.
An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended a big city church. He came home and his wife asked, “How was it?”
“Well, it was ok,” he replied. “They did do something different in church though, they sang these praise choruses instead of singing hymns.”
“A praise chorus, what is that” asked the wife.
He answered, “Well, they’re sort of like hymns but different.”
“Well what’s the difference?” she asked.
The farmer replied, “Well, it’s like this, if I were to say to you, ‘Martha, the cows are in the corn.’ Well, that would be a hymn.”
“If on the other hand I were to say to you, ‘Martha, Martha, Martha, Oh Martha, Martha, Martha; the cows, the big cows, the big brown cows and the black cows and the white cows and the black and white cows, the cows, the cows, the cows, oh the cows are in the corn, in the corn, in the corn. Ohhhh, it’s true, yes it’s true, the whole awesome herd is in the awesome corn. Yes it’s true; the whole awesome herd is in the awesome corn, the corn, the corn.’ That would be a chorus.”
The point is this, the style of music isn’t as important as who we are singing the music too!
Thank God that the music we sing and listen to and worship God with have such a positive and uplifting message!
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.
Psalm 95:1-3
We have something to sing about! God sent Jesus to the world to save us. He sent Jesus to die on a cross and pay the price for our sins. And that is what happened but three days after He died Jesus rose again and now lives.
We have something to sing about!
I know that I spent a lot of time on music but that is not the only way we can worship God, but it is one of the ways the first century church worshipped. But it wasn’t the only way.
If we are going to be a worshipping church then we need to have the mindset that worship isn’t just a part of your life, worship is everything you do.
In Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Life” Rick shows us 10 ways we can worship without music.
1. You can worship through prayer. We need to have a prayer life! God wants to be a part of our lives. He wants us to know Him and He wants to get to know us. When we are worshipping through our prayer life we are focusing our attention on who God is.
2. You can worship by reading your Bible. How can we worship in spirit and in truth if we don’t know the truth? The truth is essential to our worship.
3. You can worship God by being obedient to God.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. James 4:7
4. You can worship by giving your tithes and offerings. If you want to know what you worship then look at your check book. Scripture teaches us, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:21
5. You can worship by building deep relationships with other Christians.
6. You can worship by sharing your faith.
7. You can worship God by serving others. Jesus taught us that when we do things for others we are doing it for Him.
8. You can worship God by being thankful. Instead of seeing the glass half empty we need to see it half full.
9. You can worship God by surrendering your whole life to Him. Whether you realize it or not many of us have parts of our lives that we have not turned over to Him yet.
10. You can worship God by living a life of purpose. In other words, everything you do you do for Him. Each of us were created for God’s pleasure and so everything we do we are doing for Him.
According to Warren, God has a reason for our existence, it is five-fold; fellowship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism, and worship. Worship is the foundation of the first four.
If we as a church can be a worshipping church the way Jesus intended the church to be then we will be a powerful church. The way Jesus wants us to worship is to understand that worship isn’t simply one area of your life; it is your life
And here is the great part about being a worshipping church, when we honor God with every part of our life the way we are supposed to, God is going to draw near to us.
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
James 4:7-10
If you want God to show up in your life then you need to worship Him more. If you want to worship Him more you must submit yourself to him. The person who submits themselves to the Lord will be exalted in ways they could never accomplish on their own in their relationship with God.
The church on earth needs to be worshipping because worship is the activity of heaven. Isaiah was given a glimpse of this in Isaiah 6:1-5 and John the Revelator was given a glimpse of this in Revelation 4:1-11.
When Isaiah witnessed the worship in heaven it allowed him to understand his own sinfulness.
When we fail to worship the sinfulness in us grows.
In the first chapter of Romans, Paul shows us what happens when the human heart turns away from worshipping God.
Let me close with this thought in Romans 1:18-32.
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Romans 1:18-32
God has made Himself evident to all mankind throughout all time. He has done this internally and externally. He has done this throughout creation, showing His existence, His power, and His divine nature.
And yet we find today a church which is willing to suppress the truth of God and the result of this is that they fail to glorify God as God and fail to give thanks to Him.
A major problem with the church in America is her worship of our God. Our only hope to be the great nation we once were must be found in our worship of God. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34
Let us worship God and pray for God's grace and mercy to grant revival, for Christians to boldly proclaim the gospel so that the lost can be found.
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