What is the one thing that we will do in heaven that we do on Earth? Preaching? disciple-making? Missions? It is worship! Worship is an end in itself, not a means to something else. Meaning, if you only worship God because you get something out of it, then it ceases to be worship because you are only doing it for you. Before we get into what true worship is, let me explain WHY we worship. We worship because we can’t stop worshiping. We were created to worship so the question is not “are you worshipping” but instead “what are you worshipping”. Let’s look at what True Worship is…
I. TRUE WORSHIP IS SOMETHING GOD INITIATES (Isaiah 6:1)
Jeremiah, Jonah, Abraham, Moses (the bush was already burning). Here Isaiah comes to look for God but finds that He is already there. God initiated this encounter. I love how God initiates encounters in scripture…it’s never the same way twice, as if He is saying to us, “I know all of you are different. I know what it will take to get your attention”. I love the way God works. God has interacted with humanity and then recorded it for us, so we could go back and see how He has been working the whole time. This is something we all need to understand, listen to me, bring it on in here, “This verse is a clear statement from God that we don’t invoke the presence of God but instead that God has always been among us”.
Do you walk into this service thinking, “God is already here” or better yet, when leaving your house, “God is within me waiting on me to recognize Him through worship?” Not many do. Many of us come into this building, cold-turkey, waiting for God to hit us with an abundance of ooey-gooey-feelings. If you think that worship is about God giving you good feeling then you have sold worship short of what it truly is intended to be. (Glorify God)
True worship is something that God initiates but for us to truly experience it we must be aware of God’s presence and His supremecy!
II. TRUE WORSHIP DEMANDS WE RECOGNIZE WHO GOD IS (6:1-3)
You need to recognize that God is bigger than you, better than you, and knows more than you. King David started off by recognizing God’s supreme authority in Psalm 24 when he said, “The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.” I am telling you this because God wants you to understand that worship is not about you but instead it is about Him. LOOK, it is not about recharging your battery so you can survive the rest of the week. It’s not about you at all, it’s all about Him and His greatness. Recognizing and worshipping the God who created and sustains all things. When we fail to recognize God’s power in the life of the universe then we fail to recognize His power in the life of the church. Have you ever pondered on the vastness and complexity of our universe?
Scientists know the vastness of the universe. One atheist scientist said this, “If there is a personal God, as the Christians say, who spoke this universe into being, then there is a certain respect and reverence and wonder and dread that would have to come through when they talk about Him and when they worshipped Him”. So let me ask you this is that what people would see if they walked into this place and seen us in “worship”. Would they see a people who were showing respect, reverence, and wonder towards God?
Charles Misner, a scientist who specialized in general relativity theory, said this about Albert Einstein’s skepticism over the church. He said, “The design of the universe…is very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe this is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion, although he strikes me as a basically very religious man. He must have looked at what Christians said about God and felt they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty that they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that religions he’d run across did not have proper respect….for the author of the universe”
What does this worship service look like to people walking into these doors for the first time? What will people say about our worship? Will they say that we love Jesus, know Jesus, and praise His name as our King?
We need to elevate our view of God because how we view God will determine how we live out our lives in worship
I love the quotes by A.W. Tozer, “The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.” Tozer continues “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy”. Let me ask you this…do you know God in this way?
TRUE WORSHIP DEMANDS THAT WE RECOGNIZE WHO GOD IS. True worship also…
III. TRUE WORSHIP DEMANDS WE RECOGNIZE WHO WE ARE (6:4-5)
Isaiah seen God’s superiority and said, “Woe is me…I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips”. You see, when you recognize God’s superiority then you can’t help seeing your inferiority. When you recognize God’s greatness, you can’t help but see your weakness. We are a sinful people. We are a people BENT towards sin. We are crooked. AND how do measure the crookedness of an object? YOU PUT IT NEXT TO SOMETHING STRAIGHT! That’s where God comes in. God is the standard for perfection. If you always compare yourself to others you will always come out smelling like a rose. BUT next to God you will see how sinful you and the people around you really are.
When we get to the point of seeing who we are, then we can start to begin preparing for worship…
IV. TRUE WORSHIP DEMANDS PREPARATION & RECONCILIATION (6-7)
PREPARATION--Some professing Christians have never even heard that preparation is involved in worship. That some things have to be done before you can truly worship God. Preparation is very important.
Let me give you an illustration: For those of you men who are married, did you just roll out of bed on your wedding day in your tux and immediately walk into the chapel and get married? (some of you men are looking as if that is exactly what you did lol ok bad illustration) Men, did your bride role out of bed and then immediately get married? NO. Before a bride gets married, what does she do? She gets ready! And men, how long can that take? Don’t answer that because you might be walking home! ALL DAY. Here is the reason why I say this, in scripture what is one way the church is referred to as? The bride of Christ. The church is the bride of Christ and we if we are going to worship God then we ought to get ready. Getting prepared is NOT what you THINK you should do, but what GOD”S WORD says you should do!
God’s word says in Psalm 100: 4-5 that we should, “enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise”. THANKSGIVING--Implies we have spent time meditating on all that He has done and we come with a grateful heart, thanking Him. Not complaining and gripping about this and that. PRAISE-- implies that we have invested time meditating on His character and nature and come praising Him for them. Is that how Isaiah entered? (he was most likely depressed and full of anxiety because of Uzziah’s death). Do you enter here with thanks in your heart for what God has done and praise from your mouth for who He is? (pause) Let me give you the reason why most of us enter here doing everything but giving thanksgiving and praise…. Earlier I quoted Psalm 24:1, “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” in that same passage (v.3-4) King David gives us a great picture of how we are to approach God in worship:
He starts with two questions, “who may ascend the hill of the Lord” and “who may stand in His holy place”? This is in reference to places of worship in David’s day. Pagans would build altars to their god’s on high ground for others to see and David gives the picture that God’s altar is higher than all others. David then gives the criteria for those who can enter into true worship of God: (4 requirements for true worship)
1. You have to have CLEAN HANDS (Right Actions--not living in continual sin) if you are living in continual sin disregarding what God desires for your life, then you are not going to hear God.
2. You have to have a PURE HEART (having right motives)
3. You can’t have IDOLS (nothing above God) if you put anything above God in your life you have created an idol and you won’t hear from God. (money, status, job, spouse, friends, children)
4. You must hold to GOD”S TRUTH (not living a lie) if you are living a lie than you won’t hear from God.
RECONCILIATION—This means that you need to forgive those who have offended you. Forgiveness is releasing the desire for retaliation--let God take care of it.
Some say-I can’t forget, well that is probably a good thing so you will always remember what has been done AND how God has allowed you to defeat the desire to retaliation.
It’s more than feeling sorry--it about getting o the heart of the problem. It doesn’t matter if they were 99% wrong and you had only 1%, you still ask for forgiveness of the 1%. YOU CANNOT WORSHIP WITH THAT IN YOUR HEART!
You can sing shout run up and down the aisle but it doesn’t help. You will have a block on your worship. do you want to worship God? This is what scripture says needs to be done first. Forgive those who have offended you AND seek forgiveness fo those you have offended! (Matt 5:23-24, “if you are offering your sacrificial gift at the alter and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the alter. First go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.”
God demands reconciliation not just with others but also with Him. In order to be reconciled to God you must first do what Isaiah did. He first had conviction from God---confession to God (5), then he was cleansed & commisioned by God (6-7).
Notice what happened when Isaiah was cleansed of his sin. The NIV says in (8) , “THEN he heard the voice of the LORD”
Do you hear from the Lord? Maybe sin is blocking you from hearing God. You need to confess sin in your life and stop living in that sin in order to hear from God. Finally you can see….
V. TRUE WORSHIP DEMANDS ACTION (8)
When a Jewish convert heard the word “sacrifice and offering” at least 3 ideas could come to mind: all had to do it, it had to be the best they had, that it was always for God’s honor and glory. This was done as an overflow of the worship that was taking place inside of them. The same applies to us today….
1. We all are to offer to the Lord a "sacrifice of praise" (Hebrews 13:15) 2. It should be the best we have to offer. Not everyone’s "best" is the same. 3. It is done for His honor and glory, not for the person offering the sacrifice.
Paul does make reference to sacrifices in the NT. In Romans 12 Paul said “WE are to be living sacrifices”. You may not be the best in a certain area and someone might be better than you but God only asks for you to give your best in that area.
Did Isaiah worship God in this passage? ABSOLUTELY! What was his worship? He recognized God, he confessed his sin, he was then cleansed, he then heard God’s voice saying, “who will go for us” and then from an overflow he said “Here I am send me”. DID Isaiah worship through song? NO, his response to God’s call was his act of worship! If Isaiah would not have obeyed that call then his worship would have been incomplete. If God calls you to a task but you do not respond then you have defiled your worship and God does not accept it as worship and thus leaving you back where you started. It’s Not just knowing--but doing that which you know to be true
Overwhelming feelings and praise from our lips. By themselves fail to complete worship. You can run up and down these aisles, get all Pentecostal up in here, shout at the top of your lungs, but to God it means nothing if you are defying Him. God demands a response
ENDING
Complaining or worship--you get to choose what you do. Life happens but it should never overcome your urge to worship because it is what you were created to do………You want revival here—then you need to worship God. Maybe today you realized that your worship has been blocked and you want to make it right.
Isaiah 66:1-2, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?’ declares the LORD. ‘These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word’.”
God heaven is your throne and the earth your footstool. We cannot build houses or buildings that can contain you. You have no resting place because you have conquered death and shown us that we do not need to fear death anymore because you have given us life. You declare that the ones you look unto with favor are those who are humble, those who are broken in spirit, and those who tremble at your word. My prayer is that everyone in this room today recognizes that you were here waiting for them AND even though they do not have a pastor, they still have you as their King and that you have never left their side. May they do you proud by worshiping you in truth and spirit and obeying your glorious and powerful word.
