GOD DOESN’T NEED OUR WORSHIP
Ps. 33:1
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: DETERRENT
1. A lady named Beverly Ford told Reader’s Digest that her son always insists on listening to heavy-metal music when he's chauffeuring her around.
2. Knowing that he has very diverse tastes in music, she asked him one day why he always chooses this type of music while she’s riding with him.
3. “Well, Mom,” he reluctantly replied, “it's mainly so you can't sing along.”
4. Maybe she sang off-key, was too loud, or just did it constantly – whatever the reason, he didn’t want her singing.
5. Tonight we’re looking at why the world doesn’t want us to sing to God, but God says it’s the right thing to do. Follow along as we read.
B. TEXT
“Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him” Ps. 33:1
C. THESIS
1. We’re going to look at the world’s wrong ideas about worship, the 5 reasons worship is for OUR good, and conclude with 4 reasons why it’s “fitting” to worship God.
2. The title of this message is, “God Doesn’t Need Our Worship.”
I. WORSHIP IS NOT FOR GOD’S SAKE
A. WORLD’S TWISTED PERCEPTION
1. The atheistic world looks at the worship of a deity as foolishness and superstition.
2. They portray religion as evolving from earlier forms of animism, progressing to polytheism, and finally to monotheism (as man evolved from a monkey to a human.)
3. The Bible tells us it was quite the opposite. Adam & Eve, the first 2 humans (NOT descended from apes), were monotheists, who walked with God. As humanity got further away from that original relationship (the Fall; Romans 1:20-32), they fell into lower & lower depths of sin & twisted perceptions of what God is like.
4. Nonbelievers have always tried to equate the God of the Bible with gods invented by men (Isa. 37:10-13). Lifeless idols bear no resemblance to the Living God!
5. So why does God command that we worship Him? Is it a streak of vanity? If He’s truly God, why would He demand that? It seems so primitive.
6. In the 2010 movie, “Clash with the Titans” with Liam Neeson (as Zeus), the Greek gods derived their power from the worship of humans. So when humans quit worshipping them, they lost their power.
7. Does God NEED our worship to exist? Does it benefit Him somehow? Anyhow?
B. WORSHIP DOESN’T BENEFIT GOD
1. “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens….If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice thank offerings to God” Ps. 50:9,12-14. (Ps. 51:16-17).
2. Heb. 10:8, “First he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them’—though they were offered in accordance with the law.” (Teaching on Ps. 40:6-8.)
3. Paul told the Athenians, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else” Acts 17:24-25.
4. God doesn’t need anything from us! Since this is so, what is the purpose of worship?
II. WORSHIP IS FOR OUR GOOD
Worship is a means for us to come into His presence. The closer we get to God, the better it is for us.
A. FOR OUR PROTECTION
1. The closer we get to God, the less Satan can gain access to us; Satan’s kingdom-influence is lessened and God’s Kingdom-influence and covering are strengthened.
2. Jesus said to the Jewish people, “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” Mt. 23:37; Lk. 13:34.
3. For chicks, this is nestling up to their mother; up close and personal. Just as ships who get an escort by U.S. military fall under the protection of American power, so those who walk with God come under the protection of God.
4. Satan said to God about Job, “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land” (1:10).
5. We also see in Job 1:10, God’s spiritual blessing is upon those who fellowship with Him. This affects all areas of our lives.
B. WE GAIN CORRECT KNOWLEDGE
1. It’s only as we commune with the Giver of all Truth that we begin to see things from God’s perspective. “Be still and know that I am God” Ps. 46:10.
2. “[Martha] had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said” Lk. 10:39. As we wait on God, he opens our minds to His wisdom, He teaches us.
3. “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny” Ps. 73:2-3,16-17.
4. It was entering the presence of God that brought clarity to the Psalmist. His vision was corrected. He saw things from God’s eternal perspective.
C. WE GAIN HUMILITY
1. Coming before God reminds us of -
a. His Hugeness and our smallness;
b. His Power and our weakness;
c. His Glory, His Majesty;
d. His Perfection and our unworthiness.
2. A wealthy man or a head of state may think of him/ herself as powerful, but standing next to the Grand Teton Mountain Range always makes one feel small again.
3. Worship brings us before the All-mighty, before the Eternal. No matter who we are, the comparison sets our estimations of ourselves down toward their proper place.
D. PROMOTES OUR HOLY CHARACTER
1. God revealed Himself to me during a prayer meeting. As I stood wishing the meeting would hurry up and end, God revealed Himself to me.
2. I found myself in the presence of the Living God. An impossibly brilliant light shone from His holy being on me and inside me.
3. At once I understood that I was a gross sinner in the presence of a morally perfect God, the Creator. This was shocking news to me.
4. My sins were a problem with the Holy Being; something had to be done. My sins must be accounted for.
5. The prophet Isaiah had a similar experience (Isa. 6:1-7). In my case, I accepted the atonement provided by God’s Son Jesus. His death on the cross paid the penalty for sins for all who trust in Him as Savior.
6. When I did, the guilt of my sins immediately fell off and I felt a wonderful peace between myself and the Creator, that is still with me 38 years later!
E. OUR HAPPINESS & JOY
1. A person whose relationship is right with God has a feeling of safety and well-being that most other people don’t have. The feeling of being loved unconditionally is there too.
2. David summed it up when he said, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” Ps. 16:11.
III. GOD DOESN’T “NEED,” BUT HE DOES ALLOW
A. HE ENJOYS FELLOWSHIP
1. God doesn’t NEED us in order for Him to exist, but that is not to say He doesn’t derive some benefit from our existence.
2. God does enjoy fellowshiping with us. He daily visited with Adam & Eve in the Garden. However, those whom He visits with must be morally pure, by innocence or sacrifice.
3. God does appear to enjoy company. He created the angels, and then a lower order of natural creatures – humans. The world was provided as something for us to rule, but God doesn’t put animals & plants on par with mankind. We are made in the image of God!
B. HE ENJOYS EXPRESSING LOVE
1. God does have the nature to express love. I disagree with the Calvinists that God does everything for His own glory. In my opinion, that would make His motivation vanity.
2. Instead, I believe the Bible clearly teaches that God’s overruling motivation is LOVE. “God so LOVED [us] that He gave His only begotten Son…”
3. I believe that God intended to reveal His nature as a loving God (Eph. 3:10) and that that was part of His motivation in creating man as a free yet fallible creature.
C. HE ENJOYS COMPLEXITIES
1. He seems obvious to me that God enjoys complexities. The farther we go into the subatomic structure, the smaller it gets. The farther we look into space, the bigger it gets.
2. The more we study the human genome, the more complex it gets. About the time we think we understand how it works, we discover “junk DNA,” that is 90% of our DNA, yet seems to have no purpose.
3. Only 9.5 % of our DNA is functional, according to Oxford University researchers. Ahhh! But it does have a purpose! We just haven’t figured it out.
4. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings (scientists?) is to search out a matter” Prov. 25:2. Quite possibly it gives us purpose to have something to figure out.
5. I sometimes wonder if God doesn’t like to challenge His own omniscience. Like creating so many contingencies that even He is challenged to see how it will turn out.
6. And yet “He knows the end from the beginning.” He frustrates the intelligent (1 Cor. 1:19) and “overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense” Isa. 44:25.
7. As Paul said, “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1 Tim. 1:17.
D. WORSHIPING HIM IS THE CORRECT RESPONSE TO HIS WONDER/ CREATION (Ps. 33:1)
1. Just as it is fitting to clap & shout for a baseball player who hits a home run, or for a football quarterback who lobs a long pass into the receiver’s hands, or at a concert where a violinist plays the most masterful piece that brings the audience to their feet – so it’s fitting to worship God.
2. If you’ve ever seen the British crown jewels, one diamond the size of a lemon with a million sparkling facets – it takes your breath away! So is the wonder of God and equally worthy of our honor.
3. We have no trouble praising humans who do great feats, or spectacular mountains, or gigantic waterfalls – why would we think the Creator of all these things doesn’t deserve honor and praise for all He’s done for us (for He made all things for OUR enjoyment; 1 Tim. 1:17)?
4. It’s only right to worship Him. That’s why, when the Pharisees asked Jesus to stop the people from praising Him, He replied, “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Luke 19:40.
5. God doesn’t want or need our praises, but God deserves all praise. It’s good & right for us, as created beings, to praise our Creator, even more than to clap for a human!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: THE GOD WHO PAINTS
1. Netzahualcoyotl (1402-1472) may have had a difficult name to pronounce, but his name is full of significance. It means “Hungry Coyote” and this man’s writings show a spiritual hunger.
2. As a poet and ruler in Mexico before the arrival of the Europeans, he wrote, “Truly the gods, which I worship, are idols of stone that will not speak or feel….Some very powerful, hidden and unknown god is the creator of the entire universe. He is the only one that can console me in my affliction and help me in such anguish as my heart feels; I want Him to be my helper and protection.”
3. We cannot know if Nezahualcoyott found the Giver of Life. But during his reign he built a pyramid to the “God who paints things with beauty,” and he banned human sacrifices in his city.
4. Today there are many “hungry Coyotes who know that the idols of fame, money, and relationships can’t fill the void of their souls. (Our Daily Bread, 4/19/16)
5. I’m glad I know the God who paints the beautiful sunsets, puts rainbows in the sky, clothes the majestic mountains with beauty, the fields with flowers, and makes tender little babies whose little cries tear at your heart.
6. What an awesome God, Who is worthy of praise; Whose ways are past finding out! How little we know of Him. Job said that all we can perceive with our senses is only the “fringes” (ends of the threads of a massive tapestry) of what God has done (26:14).
B. THE CALL
1. Call to salvation.
2. Worship time, not because we have to, but because we want to. Our worship is of our own freewill.
