Worship: That Thing We Do
Acts 17:16-28; John 4:19-26
The crowd jumps to its feet. Many clench tissues and wipe tears on from their reddened cheeks. The applause is thunderous, intermingled with cheers and praises to God as Christopher Kline from Madison, AL leads worship. It marked a great achievement. For God, it was just another step in this teen’s walk with him. But for Christopher, it was nothing short of a miracle. Christopher was born with Downs Syndrome and his parents were told that he would never do anything normal kids do. Christopher would be content to just sit and do nothing. So his parents turned him over to the Lord to allow Him to do His work in Christopher’s life. Christopher overcame many of the obstacles he faced as he grew up. He takes mainstream school classes, became the football team manager, plays baseball and has an outstandingly accurate basketball shot. But if you ask him what his favorite thing to do it, he will enthusiastically tell you, “Worshiping God!” Leading worship is one way Christopher can show how much he loves to worship God and that day as Christopher ministered to over 8000 people, they raised their hands in worship and were led into the presence of God, for they could tell it was his favorite thing. It’s what he was created to do.
Worship: it’s that thing we do. It’s what we were created to do. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at worship, something that we often take for granted because it’s so much a part of the routine our lives. We’re going to look at what the Bible says about worship, teach you how to deepen your intimacy with God through worship and empower your worship that we might obey God in greater ways.
There are five things we learn about this thing we do called worship. First, worship is the activity of the soul. It’s not what Christians do, it’s what everybody does. Every person worships, through their words, thoughts, and actions. In our Scripture today, Paul lays out the observation that every person on planet earth worships. That means you are a worshiper and I am a worshiper. It’s not only what we do, it’s who we are. We’ve been doing since the beginning of time. This point was driven home to me on my Holy Land Tour in 1996. Megiddo is known as the place where Armegeddon, the battle between Jesus and Satan takes place at the end of times. Here you see a scale model of the city in the time of King Solomon. Megiddo is situated over a narrow mountain pass overlooking and protecting the main trade route called the Via Maris. On the eastern side of the city is the place of worship and sacrifice. It overlooks the valley and is one of the most breathtaking sights I have ever seen. It inspires worship. But when archaeologists began to excavate the sight, the found a huge round sacrifice platform where the worship of the pagan god Ba’al occurred. Further excavation found that people had been worshiping in this sight for more than 5000 years. When the Jews conquered this area, they destroyed the temple but maintained the location as a place of worship for Yahweh, the one true God of Israel. The history of this sight reveals we are created to worship.
When we talk about worship, we usually think of what we do here at church and not far behind that is what you prefer in worship. Some people prefer organ music and hymns while others prefer a worship band and praise music. Some want an orderly, respectful style of worship while others want a spirit-filled worship. Some want quiet reflective worship while others want a high energy praise service. But the reality is that worship is so much bigger than that. Worship is more than music, liturgy, prayer and a sermon. Worship is not coming to church on Sunday morning and doing your thing. Because true worship is whatever you determine is of greatest importance to you and then giving yourself to that. When something has great value in our lives, we say it not just with our words but with our lives for all to hear: “I worship that! This is what I value the most.” And that is what worship is: giving yourself to what you value the most. If you take all of the other stuff of life away, what you discover is the activity of the human soul is to find something or someone of value and worship it.
Second, we are created to worship our Creator. The Greeks knew their need to worship too, perhaps even more than we do today. Paul discovered this in Athens. Athens was a very educated, culturally rich and spiritually aware city. Everywhere Paul went, he saw statues to the gods they worshipped. And just to make sure no god was missed or left out, they had a statue to an “unknown god.” The people of Athens recognized that they were created to worship and all around them were the objects of their worship. The problem is that they were worshipping the wrong gods. What Paul saw all around him in Athens is a people who were reaching out and searching for the object of their worship. The Greek word used for searching means “groping for something.” It’s the image of a person in the dark feeling their way around a room looking for something. So Paul seeks to introduce and re-direct the people of Athens to the one true God and their Savior Jesus Christ. We see the same thing today. People are searching spiritually and they seem to be groping in some pretty amazing and far out ways. My first worship leader came to me one day and said he had been reading a lot about Native American worship of plants and animals and was really drawn to certain beliefs of it. As he talked, he was blending the beliefs of Native Americans with Christianity. And I was amazed as he came to worship the one true God that Sunday and yet he was still searching. Searching is normal. God wired within us the hunger and desire to connect with Him. There is an imprint of the Creator on us and only He exactly matches that imprint on our heart and soul. And so we continue to search until we find the one and only true match and recipient of our worship. There is a longing and hunger within us and it is to know Him, embrace Him, connect with Him, honor Him and worship Him. There are a lot of people saying deep within their souls, “I know it’s out there. I just haven’t found it yet.”
The most awesome thing about the spiritual journey of searching is that God said, “Here I am. I am with you. I have never left you. All you have to do is reach out to find me.” And when we do, we find Him everywhere. He’s in our hearts. He’s in our DNA. He’s in the world around us, in the trees, the plants, the food, the bird, the fish and in every living thing because he created it and He’s put a part of himself in you for we are created in His image.
Third, we are great worshippers. You don’t need to learn how to worship. You’re already great at it because you’ve been worshiping all of your life. We’re great worshipers. Don’t believe me? Then watch this. Clip of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. Now the Psalmist would have said, “That’s great worship!” And I know some of you are saying, “That’s not worship at all.” But it is. The clap of the hands, the screams of the voices, the expressions of awe and wonder on their faces. The singing. All the expressions of worship are there because they’re in the hearts of men and women already. With our words and lives, we’re saying, “This is a worthy object of value to me.” This is great worship but not so great a focus or object of our worship.
Fourth, great worship is not only about what we do but who we worship. The encouraging part of me says we can do that. We can see a generation in whom worship as God intended wells up and bursts out of us. The discouraging part is the object of that worship: a little god, a small, finite, powerless god. Yet it seems they were far more moved by that little god, the Beatles, than the church is a great and awesome God. The crowd was just letting go and worshipping with their whole being. Worship is in the heart of people. It is what we do. It happens in arenas, it happens at Saints games, it happens at LSU games, it happens at concerts, it happens all over every day around the world because worship is what we are intended to do. Worship is about worth, declaring this is important to me but it is meant to be focused on our Creator and Redeemer. The issue is not the quality of our worship but the object of our worship. Paul didn’t need to teach the people of Athens how to worship. They were already great worshipers. He just needed to show who the true object of their worship should be.
Sometimes, we need to be reminded too. There was a preacher in Scandanavia who heard one Sunday morning that the King would be present at worship. Understandably rattled, he ditched his well-prepared sermon and spoke on and on about the Christian virtues of the King. Even though the King said nothing after the service, the preacher could not help but wonder if he would receive some reward for his loyal support. Sure enough, some time later a large crate was delivered to the church. Thinking his reward had arrived, he hurriedly pried open the crate only to find inside a life-sized crucifix. He could hardly contain his disappointment. “We’ve already got a lot of crucifixes,” he thought. As he looked inside the crate, he saw a letter under the royal seal. Excitedly, he opened it. The letter contained the king’s instructions to place the crucifix on the back wall of the sanctuary so the preacher would always be reminded of which King he should be speaking and worshiping.
Fifth, worship is not determined by what we say but how we live. It’s not determined by our words but by our walk. Roger Williams was thumbing through a magazine on a short flight from Sacramento to San Diego. He had taken his seat when two well-dressed, attractive 20 something year old women sat down next to him. Their conversation competed with his attention to his magazine. They talked about the club scene, what they liked to drink, who they were dating, their intimate relationships with men, both single and married. Then it turned to a gripe session. “Why do guys have such a hard time committing?” one asked. The other said, “And why don’t they ever leave their wives like they promise to?” Then their conversation shifted to work. Finally, one of them said, “But you know, if it wasn’t for my church, my life would be really hell.” “Wow, you go to church? I know exactly how it feels. If it wasn’t for church, I don’t know where I’d be.” Yeah, I know what you mean,” the other lady said, “if I miss more than two weeks of church, everything in my life goes nuts.” Then the plane started its descent and everything got quiet. Roger just sat there stunned at what he had heard as this conversation had unfolded. And then he writes, “Worship was just a religious fix. For them, their worship of God, what they did and how they lived their lives reflected who and what they truly worshipped.”
Why do you worship? We want to say, “I worship the One true God who deserves my worship and is first in my life” but the truth is there is a trail of our time, affection, emotion, allegiance and belongings which say otherwise. When you follow that trail, not our words but our lives, there is a throne at the end. But who or what sits on that throne? James Emery White writes, “Whatever you love the most, serve the most, seek the most, give to the most, worship the most, and care about the most, that is your god. Your ‘god’ can be your career, your bank account, the way you look, a particular position or degree, influence, power or physical pleasure. It can even be something that is considered intrinsically good, like your marriage or your family, yet you allow it to dominate your life more than God….Your ‘god’ is whatever you allow to control you, to be your ultimate guide to decision making, the place of your supreme loyalty and the source of your self-worth.” The key isn’t learning how to worship because you already do that. The challenge is to make sure you’re worshipping the right person with the life you live.
You can go home and tell your friends, “I’m a great worshiper!” They might say, “No you’re not, you didn’t even go to church on Sunday.” And you can say, “O yeah I am! When I get locked onto something of highest value to me, you should watch me worship it. Watch me lift it up, watch me amplify it, watch me sing about it, watch me bow down before it, watch me sacrifice before it, watch me give everything I have for it. Watch me talk about it, reflect it, glorify it and magnify it! When I get locked onto something of highest value, I am a great worshiper.” But then maybe after you say that, you realize that the stuff you’ve been worshiping is not so great.
My hope for you in the next few weeks is that not only can you become an even greater worshiper but that you can become a great worshiper of a great God as you place the Creator and the Redeemer into the center of your affections, knowing all the while that when you do, there is going to have to be an idol rearrangement in your life and there is going to have to be a lifestyle adjustment to the value of God. And you’re going to have to chart a new path to a new throne, the throne of God.
