Believe 11 - Worship
November 30, 2014
Today, we move into the second part of our BELIEVE series. We’re moving from asking “What do we believe?” to “What should we do?” Our first answer is to Worship and give honor to God. Why should we worship and honor God? We’ve really been talking about that over the first 10 weeks of our series. We worship and honor God because:
1. We believe in the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the one true God.
2. We believe God is involved in our lives and cares about us. God is personal.
3. We believe God restores us to a right relationship through His grace.
4. We believe we receive salvation through faith in Christ.
5. We believe God’s Word is true and should direct our beliefs and actions.
6. We believe we are loved and important to God because we are His children.
7. We believe God has set a special place, heaven, for us to continue to live after we die, when we have faith in Him.
Those are some of the beliefs we’ve talked about over the past weeks. Worship is about giving praise and honor to God, it’s not an either or - - - but a both and. Worship is not just public or private. It is both. God wants us to worship him together as His Church and to worship Him in our private lives as His children.
Over the centuries worship has changed. We can say it’s evolved. But some people would not like that. I prefer to think – worship has changed and adapted to the needs of every generation. Yet, that can be really confusing. We all come into worship with various expectations of what should happen in worship.
Some say worship is how we do certain things ~
1. When we sing, we should sing standing up, sitting down, sing with arms lifted high, sing with no expression at all. Without instruments, with organ and piano. With all types of instruments.
2. Prayer should be short – prayer should be long, or in groups, pray standing, pray kneeling.
3. Communion should be weekly / monthly, even quarterly / as needed.
a. Use unleavened bread and wine / unleavened bread and grape juice.
b. Bread and grape juice / bread and wine / doritos and pop.
4. Sermons should be 15 minutes. Sermons should be 45 minutes. Filled with stories. No stories. Sermons should be simple. Should sound like you’re in a seminary class. Should be fire and brimstone / should be encouraging.
Some say worship with the church is not necessary. Just do your own thing alone with God. Others say worship is about community and being with other believers.
Maybe you’ve felt the same. You know you want to connect with God in worship. But you’ve been confused as to how. You’re not alone.
In Psalm 95, the the Psalmist wrote these words ~
1 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
Verse 6 tells us 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
So, what does all this mean? What is worship and how do we do it?
Worship is defined as ~ Adoring reverence or honor. To show profound religious devotion and respect to; adore or venerate (God or any person or thing considered divine); To be devoted to and full of admiration for; To have or express feelings of profound adoration.
With that in mind, we need to determine who or what is the object of our worship. Is the object of our worship God? Is it our children? Is it the next great vacation? Is it our summer homes, our winter homes? Is it the next gadget we can buy? Is it ourselves? You get the point. The object of our worship can be a multitude of things. And if you think, oh that’s silly, you know it’s God, then check your worship priorities.
Is Sunday morning reserved for corporate worship, worshiping Jesus as a community of believers? Or do you make excuses for not being here? Do you justify why you don’t need to wake up and come here or wherever you go? Do you spend time when you’re alone worshiping God?
Remember, worship just does not happen when we come into this building.
In Romans 12:1, Paul tells us 12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
What Paul was getting at is this — instead of animal’s which were sacrificed, in the OT, now we are sacrificing ourselves — not literally — but as Paul said we are living sacrifices. This means we put aside OUR desires in order to follow God. We put our energy and resources at His disposal and we trust in His wisdom and guidance. We do this because of our relationship with God. We do this because we have experienced God’s grace and gift of salvation.
So, what is the essence of worship? It is the celebration of God! When we worship God, we celebrate Him; we boast in Him; we sound His praises. Author, Ronald Allen wrote this ~
Worship is not casual chatter that drowns out the organ prelude; we celebrate God when we allow the prelude to attune our hearts to the glory of God through music.
Worship is not the mumbling of prayers or the mouthing of hymns with little thought and less heart; we celebrate God when we join together — earnestly in prayer and intensely in song.
Worship is not self – aggrandizing words or boring cliches when one is asked to give a testimony; we celebrate God when all of the parts of the service fit together and work to a common end.
Worship is not grudging gifts or compulsory service; we celebrate God when we give to Him hilariously and serve Him with integrity.
Worship is not haphazard music done poorly, not even great music done merely as a performance; we celebrate God when we enjoy and participate in music to His glory.
Worship is not a distracted endurance of the sermon; we celebrate God as we hear His Word gladly and seek to be conformed by it more and more to the image of our Savior.
As a thoughtful gift is a celebration of a birthday,
as a special evening out is a celebration of an anniversary,
as a warm eulogy is a celebration of life,
so a worship service is a celebration of God.
I like that image. You see, worship is not about rating it. Worship is not formal and it’s not informal; worship is not about the building; nor about how we dress.
Worship is giving praise and honor, glory and thanks to God. We worship God for who He is, for what He has done and continues to do for us.
We thank God for His blessings! They are abundant, even in the tough times, God is still blessing us. We may have to look differently, we may have to change the way we experience God, but God never changes, we do!
Whatever else the word worship suggests to you in your own experience and expression, worship should speak powerfully about “our response to God.” It’s focused on our relationship and not our environment.
One of my professors in seminary, Bob Weber, wrote a book entitled, Worship is a Verb. We forget that. It’s not a noun. Worship is not a person, place or object. It’s an action. True worship is a celebration of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Because of that, because of the work Christ did for us, because of His grace, because we have the Holy Spirit with us, to empower us more than we can imagine, because of God’s love, mercy, compassion, power and strength . . . and more . . . because of all that and more . . .
we are called to actively turn our hearts toward God in powerful praise of God's great works. God, in turn, speaks to us and blesses us. Remember, worship is not something done to us or for us, but by us. Worship is not a mood, it’s our response to God.
So, what difference does this make in the way we live?
When we worship God together — we worship as one body, renewing our community. Singing, praying, greeting, listening and caring for one another as one body. That leads us to move within the community and demonstrate God’s power and grace.
When we worship God in our personal time — we worship God in a more personal manner. We may pray out loud, sing out loud, make up our own worship songs. We may cry out to God in a way we don’t do in corporate worship. We may listen to music we don’t in community worship. And we can also be quiet and allow God to speak to us, as we draw closer to Him and move into the world to show His love and strength.
Since the fall in the garden of Eden, our greatest struggle is wanting to be our own god. While most of us wouldn’t want the responsibility and burden of calling the shots for the entire world, we do want to be the god of our own lives — to do what we want, when we want, where we want, with whom we want —
And here is why Worship is so important: when we engage in true worship, we crawl off the throne of God, where we do not belong and we crawl onto the altar of God, where we do belong.
I want to end with a look at the differences between two people at the same moment in time. In 2 Samuel 6, we read the story of King David as he went to retrieve the ark. David and his men successfully returned to Jerusalem.
As David entered the city — in the presence of all the people, he was filled with a powerful joy to God. The author of 2 Samuel 6 wrote ~
14 And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod.
15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
16 As the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.
David’s deep respect, awe, joy, gratitude, and relief at God’s blessings overwhelmed him to the point where he didn’t care about anyone or anything — except total, unbridled worship of God.
Michal, his wife, was embarrassed by David’s actions. Could Michal have looked out the window, seen the ark, and become so excited about the returning presence of God that she would hurry down and join in the celebration with David? Certainly. Michal had a choice in her response. While David danced, Michal despised.
Now, the point is not about what we wear or about whether or not we leap and dance. The heart of this passage is about the heart of the person! Both David and Michal witnessed the ark, the symbol of God’s presence, coming into Jerusalem. Both responded to their hearts. Therein is the true practice of worship — our hearts surrendered and submitted to God, attributing all we are and all we have to Him.
We’ll end with this simple question . . . are you a David or a Michal?
