Worship
Thinking, Acting, Being like Jesus
Assorted Scriptures
Introduction-
In the last several weeks
We have looked at the church and the part that each of us plays in the church.
We have looked at compassion given us and the compassion we should have for others.
The Word of God and applying it to our lives,
Salvation of God, and our identity we have in Christ.
These things have had a great impact on this congregation.
For the next several weeks, we will go from beliefs to practices.
We are thinking like Jesus, so now we want to act like Jesus.
There is a big difference between believing something we know to be right and believing something as a way of life.
One is head knowledge and one comes from the heart.
One can be changed by circumstances and one actually get’s stronger as our faith is exercised and stretched.
When our beliefs go from our head to our hearts, they form who we are.
From thinking about it to putting our faith into action.
Many people have good intentions, but never act upon them.
While effort is a great beginning, doing is what separates greatness from average.
Right beliefs and the determination to accomplish what God called you to do sets us apart.
How can our beliefs go from thoughts of the mind to action of the heart?
By Engaging!
The reason most suffer with faith issues is because they do not engage.
They do not connect!
They never put their faith into action.
When it is tested by circumstances or by hardships, they do not know what to do with it.
Getting into the presence of God moves us toward action (repeat)
The farther we are away from God and His presence, the more we try to humanly rationalize rather than operate on faith we know to be true.
We cannot transform our own lives spiritually.
This must be done by the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us and guiding us.
Most believers do not live Spirit filled lives because they do not allow the Lord to have control of their lives. He is allowed to go only as far as they want instead of allowing Him to do what is needed.
God’s Holy Spirit dwelling within us, our spirit allowing God to make changes, the one (ours) surrendering to His Spirit, not the other way around and we yield to His influence and His direction for our lives. John 15 is the example of the transformation that takes place.
John 15:1-8
The vine is Jesus Christ
The branches- you and I / believers.
The vine is the life source- as branches we must remain on the vine to get our strength.
To be cut off would be judgment.
To take yourself off would be disastrous.
To allow God to prune us is to bear fruit.
The believers apart from the vine has no fruitfulness from His union and fellowship with God.
Do you see why some believers struggle?
Do you see why some will blame God for what is going on in their lives and truth be told, the reason is they have cut themselves off or God is pruning and they don’t like it.
We will do what we like.
We will support the things that are important to us.
We will invest in things that matter. It will be evidenced in our lives.
One way of applying our faith would be worship.
We come into church every week and we expect our worship team to lead us to worship.
What part do we play?
What pre-service things should have been done before we even came in?
Now keeping in mind what was said- God’s Spirit dwells within the believer, so we don’t have to pray God’s presence because He dwells within us.
We know that we need to be connected to the things of God. We have to be engaged and doing the things of God or we will by default move away from God’s presence.
Psalm 95:1-2
“Come let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.”
Each Sunday morning when I stand up and greet you and open with an invocation, it is a call to worship.
The OT the priest or Levite would assemble God’s people in the temple- today your pastor stands before the congregation and calls us to worship.
The pre-service preparedness would be to be in an attitude of worship. That would mean a few minutes before I stand up that you and I would be ready to worship and prepare ourselves for what God wants to do in the service.
The text this morning is composed of two parts- (1) a call to praise the Lord, (2) submissive attitude of God’s people toward God.
One definition of worship would be to give worth to someone or something .
Society has no problem yelling for their favorite teams, wearing their jerseys, defending them like they were actually on the team. But when it comes to worship of God, it is dubbed as a personal thing that almost should be done behind closed doors.
Worship is not something you attend. Sure we come to church, but it only becomes worship when we take part. (repeat)
We are showing others what we think of God. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is not necessarily the loudest person or the one with his/her hands raised. It is the one that has given all of themselves to God.
Regardless of the method of worship, it is all about praise.
We are communicating to Him “God you are worthy”
We are declaring before God that He is worthy and that nothing we have, want, or need is more important than to offer up praise to Him.
Randy Frazee says when we worship we are expressing these convictions. (write down)
We declare He is the one true God
We believe that He cares for us in our daily lives and is a personal God.
We believe we have significance because of our position we have with God.
We recognize that God is the head of the church.
We help others because we serve a God that is compassionate and we want to be compassionate to others.
Psalms 29:2-
“Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name , worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.”
Psalms 95:6-
“Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he Is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
While worship is deeply personal, it is also corporate.
We have our times with God and individual worship.
We have times that this body of believers-Rosedale practice corporate worship which we together offer up praise to our God.
Since the fall of man we have struggled with worship, we have struggled to let God be God. Nobody would want the responsibility of being God, but we all struggle because we want to call the shots of our own lives, even though that has made a real mess of things.
Here is what I discovered about God. The more that I allow God to be in control of my life, the more I feel I have control of my life.
This is for someone this morning- I would rather receive the blessing God intends to give me than struggle and carry the burdens that I was not intended to carry. You know what I am talking about. When you force it, it does not fit right and causes problems.
Closing,
Worship is personal and worship is corporate. We need both. We need to spend time with the Lord individually as He speaks to our lives and our families and we need time with Him corporately as we as the body of Christ lift up our praise together and receive What He has us.
If we would allow God the freedom to change our lives, we would see worship in a new and exciting way. We would not see it as a struggle but as a way of expressing our love to Him
God seeks and values the gifts we bring Him--gifts of praise, thanksgiving, service, and material offerings. In all such giving at the altar we enter into the highest experiences of fellowship.
To worship God is to recognize his worth or worthiness; to acknowledge in all appropriate ways the value of what we see.
The Bible calls this activity "glorifying God" or "giving glory to God.
Scripture views the glorifying of God as five-fold activity:
praising God for all that he is and all his achievements;
Thanking him for his gifts and his goodness to us;
Asking him to meet our own and others' needs;
Offering him our gifts, our service, and ourselves;
Learning of him from his word, read and preached, and obeying his voice; Telling others of his worth, both by public confession and testimony to what he has done for us.
