IX. OBSTACLES
Worship is not an option, it is an obligation; it is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
The one thing that the church can do that no other assembly can do is to worship God and glorify Him.
A. Human nature being what it is, we do not naturally want to seek after God and
get nearer to Him.
B. Our seeming success --- "The church is going along fine . . . "
C. A return to worship could be a threat to the preacher:
1. who enjoys being important and playing God in the lives of people.
2. who has a perfected sermon system that gives him an acceptable outline
week after week.
3. who is a good platform man and can keep things moving so that the
congregation is interested and entertained.
D. A return to worship can be a threat to the church musician/song leader
1. who would rather perform than minister.
2. who has no intention of bringing his weekday life into line with his Sunday profession.
E. A return to worship can be a threat to the church member who does not want
to be disturbed.
He fills his place faithfully week after week, he pays his tithes, he works in the church now and then; but what happens at church has no relationship with the rest of his life.
X. WHAT WILL IT TAKE?
A. W. Tozer said, " If God took His Holy Spirit out of this world, what we are doing
would go right on and nobody would know the difference."
The greatest judgment God would pass on the churches today would be to take His hands off
and let them go right on doing what they are doing.
A. You begin at home
B. Take time. True worship takes time.
When praise and gratitude wither and decay, it is because we have been
concentrating on the wrong things. James S. Stewart Classic Sermons on Worship
C. Get rid of extra luggage and start carrying only the burdens that he assigns us.
D. Be patient
E. Let it start with you One song begets another, and the spark of praise leaps from
heart to heart. One man with praise to God in his soul will start others singing who
would never have thought of raising the song themselves.
James S. Stewart Classic Sermons on Worship
The real servant of humanity today is the man whose life breathes praise. Keep
sounding that note, and even when you do not know it, others will be facing life more
valiantly because of you, and they may be thanking God that you were born.
James S. Stewart Classic Sermons on Worship
F. Do not be discouraged.
When you are transformed by worship, you will not be able to please everybody, nor should you try.
XI. "SELF-DENIAL AN ELEMENT OF WORSHIP"
George H. Morrison Classic Sermons on Worship
A. No Jew came to his worship empty-handed.
B. David would not give God that which had cost him nothing. II Samuel 24:24
Those know not what religion is whose chief care it is to make it cheap and easy to
themselves, and who are best pleased with that which costs them least pains
or money. M. H.
C. Zaccheus cried, " I give!" Luke 19
D. First be reconciled to your brother. Matt. 5:23
Now mark that Jesus is talking about worship.
A sacrifice of pride must occur. It is far easier to give up a coin than it is to give up a
quarrel. It is easier to lay down a generous offering than to lay down a long-continued
grudge. GHM
The worship of the church is more important than your pride.
E. Worship is not easy. It is very hard. It is not a comfortable hour on Sunday with
beautiful music and a fluent preacher. It is an attitude of heart and soul that is
impossible without self-denial.
XII. WORSHIP IS FELLOWSHIP
In public worship, we are not simply hearers; we are a fellowship of Christian people.
You go to a lecture just to hear the lecturer, or you go to the theater just to see a play.
It does not matter who is beside you. They are nothing to you and you are nothing
to them. Not one of them would do anything for you, or seek to help you if you
were in difficulty, or go to visit you if you were sick, or try to cheer you in the evil day.
George H. Morrison Classic Sermons on Worship
XIII. "THE RELEVANCE OF WORSHIP TO LIFE"
James S. Stewart Classic Sermons on Worship
A. How should worship be?
It is this: if you want to learn anything about worship and its relevance to life, try to
overhear the worship of the saints in heaven. The church militant on earth must capture
for itself the essential notes of the worship of the church triumphant.
Rev.4:1-11 5:9-14 7:9-12 14:1-3 15:1-4 19:1-7
Worship and War is occurring together.
B. Commitment to the purpose of God
Worship should continue through the thick and the thin.
The will of God is not simply something to be accepted or borne--it is something to be asserted, something to be done. And Amen is not always a sigh; it is sometimes a shout:
My God, my Father, make me strong,
When tasks of life seem hard and long,
To greet them with this triumph song:
Thy will be done!
Where this note is lacking, there is no true worship.
C. Joy in the fellowship of God.
"In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore"
Ps. 16:11
If we have lost this note--and who can deny that many of us have lost it? -- it is
through worship that we must recapture it.
James S. Stewart Classic Sermons on Worship
D. "How shall we sing the Lord's song in this strange land?"
Ps. 137 In captivity and being jeered by the enemy to sing.
The author of this beautiful and affecting elegy is unknown, but the occasion is evident; and it was most probably composed during or near the close of the captivity.
Those who experienced the glorious worship of Zion hang their heads and wept when they see where the enemy now has them.
XIV. "WORSHIP, BEAUTY, HOLINESS"
George Campbell Morgan Classic Sermons on Worship pg 125
"O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." Ps. 96:9
A. Worship
Wherever you find beauty, it is the outcome of holiness. Wherever you find beauty as
the outcome of holiness, that beauty in itself is incense, is worship. To attempt to worship
in any other way is to fail. To live the life of holiness is to live the life of beauty, and that is
to worship.
What is worship? The essential and simple meaning of the word, and therefore the
fundamental thought is that of prostration, of bowing down. Worship suggests that attitude
which recognizes the throne, which recognizes superiority; that attitude of the life which takes
the low place of absolute reverence in the presence of that which takes hold upon the life and
compels it. It is a word full of force, which constrains us, and compels us to the attitude of
reverence.
B. Surrender of the whole of man to God is worship.
C. If I have not been worshipping God for the last six days, I cannot worship Him this morning. If there has been no song through my life to God, I am not prepared to sing his praise, and the reason why so often is because our devotion dies. This is a pause in worship, and expresses a perpetual attitude. The worship of the sanctuary is wholly meaningless and valueless save as it is preceded by and prepared for by the worship of the life.
*Worship does not begin when you go to church.
D. When does one worship?
A man worships when he is what God meant him to be. pg 132
