True Worship
Genesis 22: 1-19
Intro: Jim Dunn was serving as the pastor of the First Baptist Church, and his wife, Gladys, was very friendly and welcoming to people. One particular Sunday when the sermon seemed to go on forever, many in the congregation fell asleep. After the service, to be sociable, she walked up to a very sleepy looking gentleman. In an attempt to revive him from his stupor, she extended her hand in greeting, and said, "Hello, I’m Gladys Dunn."
To which the gentleman replied, "You’re not the only one!"
. Sadly, many who come to church these days have the same attitude
.
. They are just glad the service is over and they can, as a friend of mine says, get on about their rat killing.
. A parable is told of a community of ducks waddling off to duck church one Sunday to hear their duck preacher. After they waddled into the duck sanctuary, the service began and the duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly. He pounded the pulpit with his beak and said, with these wings, there is nowhere we ducks can not go! There is no God-given task we ducks cannot accomplish!
With these wings we no longer need walk through life.
We can soar high in the sky! Shouts of Amen!¨ were quacked throughout the duck congregation. The duck preacher concluded his message by exclaiming, With our wings we can fly through life!
WE......CAN.....FLY!!!!¨ more ducks quacked out loud AMENS! in response.
Every duck loved the service.
In fact all the ducks that were present commented on what a wonderfully convicting message they had heard from their duck preacher....
and then they left the church and waddled all the way home.
.Too often We waddle away from worship the same way we waddled in....Unchanged.
. We are back into our core values this morning.
. Last week we looked at Bible knowledge and Obedience.
. This week we will look at Worship.
. We defined worship as: surrendering our all to honoring and glorifying God.
. Wikipedia defines worship as: Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something.
. This means that our core value says that we are ascribing worth to God when He is worshiped.
. In order to worship something or someone they have to have worth.
. We arte stating that we believe that the Judeo Christian God, the God of creation, is worth our devotion.
. In order for us to truly worship, we need to understand what true worship is.
. Charles Stanley said this about worship. “I believe that most Christians in most churches have never worshiped God. We go to church, but we don’t worship. We sing songs, but we don’t worship. We listen to sermons, but we don’t worship. All of these things are elements of worship but they are not worship in and of themselves which means that you can do all of them and yet have failed to truly worship God. We Christians often mistake the means of worship for worship itself.”
. Questions like how was the service today or did you enjoy the sermon or did you like the music
or what did you get out of the service today are really the wrong questions.
. The right question should be do you think that God liked our worship today.
. You see, He is who we worship.
. We honor Him, not ourselves.
. Christians limit their worship to one hour a week. You know, the so called “worship hour.”
. When they come to that service they often come to observe and be entertained. I have been at services that were opened with the following statement: “We want you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the program we have prepared for you.” If the people feel that they were entertained they say they had a good worship service. We have gotten the whole concept of worship backwards. We think that the pastor and worship leaders are the entertainers and we are the audience. But in true worship we are the performers, the pastors and worship leaders are the directors, and God is the audience. Because our concept of worship is backwards we want to know what’s in it for us. If we are going to truly worship, we must come to the realization that worship is not for us, but for God. Because God desires our worship, we must learn how to worship him.
. The word worship is not used in the bible until Genesis chapter 22. This is the story of Abraham and his worship of God.
. The first time that the recognition of God is called worship.
. Gen. 22:1-19: 1Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called.
“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”
2“Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
3The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about.4On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.5“Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will jworship there, and then we will come right back.”
6So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked on together,7Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”
8“God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.
9When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.10And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice.11At that moment the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!”
12“Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”
13Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son.14Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the LORD will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
15Then the angel of the LORD called again to Abraham from heaven.16“This is what the LORD says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that17I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies.18And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.”
19Then they returned to the servants and traveled back to Beersheba, where Abraham continued to live.
. The first thing we see here is that in order to truly worship there must be a Recognition of who we worship.
. Abraham recognized God when He spoke to him.
. Abraham knew who God was and He gave Him the respect that He deserved. He ascribed worth to the one who was speaking to him.
. God wasn’t this abstract idea that we talked about a couple of weeks ago.
. Abraham recognized Him for who He was.
. This was the creator of the universe who was calling him to worship.
. Not some guy that lived down the road talking to him.
. Folks, we must realize who we worship.
. Who do we think we are just going through the motions for an hour on Sunday and thinking that God has been served.
. What arrogance.
. God asks this question in Job 38:3-13 when he says: Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.5Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line?6What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone7as the morning stars sang together and all the iangels shouted for joy?8“Who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb,9and as I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it in thick darkness?
0For I locked it behind barred gates, limiting its shores.
1I said, ‘This far and no farther will you come. Here your proud waves must stop!’12“Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to rise in the east?13Have you made daylight spread to the ends of the earth, to bring an end to the night’s wickedness?
. God says Who do you think you are.
. Recognize that I am the one who created all this and I am the one that worship is directed to.
. Abraham recognized this and in order for us to have true worship, we must recognize the one we are worshipping.
. Next, Abraham Prepared himself for worship.
. Abraham didn’t just roll out of bed and barely make it to church,.
. When it was time to worship, he prepared himself.
. Look at verse 3. 3The next morning Abraham got up early. He saddled his donkey and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Then he chopped wood for a fire for a burnt offering and set out for the place God had told him about.
. Once he recognized who he was to worship, he prepared himself to worship. He did all the things that were necessary for worship. He got everything ready and I’m sure started thinking about this worship experience that God had called him to.
. Just like Abraham we need to make the appropriate preparations in order to worship God. If we have not prepared our hearts to worship God we will not be able to worship even if the worship service is biblical.
. I have observed through the years as I have coached both wrestling and football that the most successful of these athletes prepare themselves before they compete. They manage to put all the distractions of what’s going on around them out of their minds and they prepare for the competition
. Folks we have to prepare ourselves to worship.
. When you think about it we spend time preparing for almost everything in life. We spend time preparing for work, for vacations, for school, for exams, for meals, and we even take time to prepare for bed. But very few of us take time to prepare ourselves for worship. We may prepare to go to church. But that isn’t the same as preparing for worship. We prepare for church by getting dressed in our Sunday best, fixing our hair and make up, and grabbing our Bibles as we head out the door. The typical Christian is very well prepared for church but not at all prepared for worship.
. Our core value of worship means that when we come here, we are here to worship God. We have prepared our hearts and our minds so that we can focus on God and not let the world effect our worship of Him.
. Just like Abraham, we must recognize who we worship and then prepare to worship Him.
. When Abraham gave his all to God in worship, we see that God responded to his worship.
. That is a result of true worship. He received a response from God.
. Look at verse 13&14 again: 13Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son.14Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the LORD will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
. Abraham had worshiped and obeyed God and God accepted his worship and responded to him.
. Folks God will bless true and honest worship.
. He will bless you individually and He will bless our church corporately when we truly worship God.
. God will respond to true and faithful worship of Him.
. A few years ago the Tennessee Titans were involved in a heart wrenching defeat in the Super Bowl. All season they had fought back from deficits to win and it appeared as though they were going to pull off another comeback victory over the Rams. However, they came up about a yard and a half short.
The next evening when the team returned to Nashville they were bused to Adelphia Coliseum where more than 45,000 fans had gathered to greet and honor their team. People painted their faces. They put on their Titan hats and jerseys. They screamed wildly as the team exited the bus and players were introduced. When that tribute to the Titans team was over not one fan walked away saying, “That event was a dud. That did nothing for me.”
The event was a great success, not because of the performance -- the teams didn’t play. It wasn’t their speeches, because few of the players are great public speakers. it was a great success because people understood the purpose. The purpose wasn’t to please the fans. The purpose of the event was to honor the team and show how much they were appreciated.
.That is what true worship is all about. It’s not about the performance (music and drama) or the speech (sermon). It’s not about pleasing you or me. It’s all about pleasing God and expressing our appreciation and love to our Lord and Savior.
. Our core value states that we value worship here at “the Creek”
. As we work toward fulfilling the mission of our church which is, to encourage and develop those we meet into committed followers of Jesus, It will start with true and authentic worship of God.
Invitation
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources:
The Holy Bible, NLT
Abraham: A True Model of Worship; Steven Dow
