Worship That Pleases God
CCCAG Sept 2nd, 2018
Scripture- John 12:1-8
Intro:
As I was preparing for today's message I looked at several different ways that this verse in scripture can be organized into a sermon.
You could separate into the different reactions that people had to Mary’s sacrifice.
You could focus on the alabaster jar.
You could focus on the duplicity in Judas’ reaction.
You could focus on the fact that Mary was doing this because she actually believed what Jesus said about his upcoming Passion Week and eventual death on the cross.
I don't think any of these subjects are as important as what Jesus himself focused on, and that was the extravagant worship shown to him by this young woman.
Worship is a spiritual principle that we need to be reminded of frequently.
Worship is the core of who we are as humans. It is the reason you and I exist as Humanity was created to love and worship God.
People spend their whole lives wondering what their purpose is in life. I have it for you this morning-
You were created to love and worship God, and to serve Him as a evidence of your worship.
I could say amen right here and step down from the pulpit because that statement alone is enough for you to chew on for months to come.
This morning I want to talk about our worship of God.
Because in the modern church, we have delegated the idea of worship to a few songs on Sunday Morning.
This concept of worship has gone through some interesting changes in the last Several decades. Our modern church culture has cheapened it to a style or a genre of music instead of what it really is supposed to be.
Right off the bat, let me list a few things that worship is not-
worship is not a style of music
Worship is not just something you do on Sunday morning
Worship is not dependent upon how you feel or how it makes you feel.
Worship is not just an action. It doesn't matter how high you raise your hands or how loud you sing.
What matters is the heart in which you worship with.
Why am I being so specific here?
Definitions matter. Within life or our faith the definitions of what we do matter and the definition of worship matters the most because worship is center to everything we are to do.
Let's look at what the actual definition of worship is-
Worship is ascribing worth to someone or something.
Worship is a statement first to yourself, second to the people around you and third the spiritual realm of what is the focus of your life.
Again it is not just a song it isn't just a style and it isn't just how much you do or how much you give.
Everything in your life is meant to be an act of worship and it is an act of worship. (repeat everything)
Let me say that again everything in our life is an act of worship.
That means the good and the bad. The only difference is what you're describing worth to.
So here is the question
Are your thoughts, your actions, your dreams, and your life passions worshipping God or yourself?
There are really only 2 options to choose from.
So this morning I want to take the example of Mary washing Jesus’ feet and look at what true worship Looks like.
Prayer-God probes our hearts
I've broken it down into several different categories today about what true and worthy worship means to God.
The first thing That worship should do is make you realize that it isn't about you. That is the first thing about what honest worship that is going to touch the heart of God means for us
I. Worship should humble you
As most of you know I grew up Lutheran and worship to me was singing songs from hymnal. Every Sunday we would go into church we would look at small displays scattered throughout the church that would have 4 to 5 numbers (pic in bulletin).
As we were sitting there waiting for church to began , if you are a good Lutheran you would already mark the song locations with your bulletin of what songs you'd be singing that day so you could turn there quickly when the songs changed.
In my late teens I walk away from the church and spent many years in rebellion and not giving God a lot of thought. When I started to return to relationship with God because of the witness of several of my coworkers I started attending and independent Pentecostal church were the worship was much different. People were very open, loud, an expressive during the worship time. For some people it was an aerobic workout. They would jump they wave their arms in the air some even ran around the entire church several times. It was the opposite of what I was used to.
But it was also the first time I felt the heavy presence of God.
I remember in the early days after I first got saved, I had to put my hands on the Pew in front of me to be able to remain standing because there was such a weight upon me. I wasn't thinking about raising my hands, jumping up and down, and definitely not running.
The only thing I could do is hold myself up as God's spirit filled me, cleansed me, and renewed me.
That was my first experience with the Holy Spirit and God wouldn't let me do anything else but stand there and let his Spirit give me a good heart scrubbing.
Dog in tub- having to hold him down to scrub him
If worship means to ascribe worth to something greater than we are, then in order to do that we have to humble ourselves to the object of our worship.
That is the first thing that worship is meant to do in our lives is to elevate God.
It is placing God on the throne of our heart stepping back and prostrating ourselves before him and saying you are Lord and God and most importantly King
The greatest pains in our life come when we try to take the throne.
I want you to think back in your life right now or even things you are going through right now today and ask yourself-
During those dark times when your heart was filled with pain, your spirit seemed to dwell in darkness and your mind was a mess and could find no way out of the situation
If you were to be honest with yourself and more importantly honest with God, the vast majority of the pain in your life comes from the wrong person being on the throne; either in your life or in the lives of those closest to you.
That is why worship is meant to humble us.
Consider the example that is given to us in John chapter 12
Mary kneels before Jesus
She undoes her hair. In that culture for a woman to show her hair or take it down meant that she was expressing the ultimate intimacy she could, apart from an actual sexual relationship, that she could have before a man
She uses that symbol of intimacy- her hair and uses it to wash the dirtiest part of the body in that time.
And she is doing this, she is weeping both because her heart is so filled with gratitude for what Jesus did for Lazarus, and because I believe she had an understanding of what Jesus was about to do for her in going to the cross.
Her worship caused her to humble herself in every possible way
That brings us to our next point about what makes our worship worthy of God
II. Worship costs
You can tell a lot about a person by what they put their focus on.
For some people it's their possessions
For some people it's their position or a job
For some people it’s how much money they have
For some people, their focus is to showcase in a talent that they have worked on and perfected
All of us have things In life that we gravitate toward that brings us a sense of fulfillment or accomplishment in life.
For many people what that one thing is what they really worship. Remember our definition worship is what we ascribe worth to and what we ascribe worth to is the thing that we often focus on.
For Judas, his focus was on money.
The Apostle John gives a little editorial about him and the reason that he objected to Mary’s act of worship. It was because he worshipped money and would often steal the money that He was entrusted to keep for ministry expenses for the rest of the disciples.
That is why Judas objected to Mary’s act of worship because it costs a lot of money.
How much money was it?
Judas estimated the cost of the perfume to be at least 300 denarii. One denarii was one day's wage for your average worker. In our country if you work a 5 day work week not counting holidays/vacations you will work about 255 days in a year. So, this was over one year’s wage.
Translating that into today's money, the United States average yearly pay for each individual is about $43,000, count in the extra days and we get $50k.
That is some expensive perfume. And it was poured on the feet of an itinerant Rabbi
Does that help put Judas’ opinion in a little bit more perspective? How many people could we feed right now in our community for $50,000? That would buy a lot of groceries. In fact, it’s probably close to the current wholesale cost of the food stock on the shelves of our local grocery store.
But to Mary, it was the best she had, and she didn’t hesitate to bless her God with her best.
What it means for you and I is this-
True worship will always cost you something.
True worship is meant to cost you something.
True worship is to point you toward the thing of ultimate worth, and that is Jesus.
ILLUSTRATION-
King David was considered to be a man after gods own heart because of his lifestyle of worship. It didn't mean he was a perfect man, anyone who is read about David's life knows that he messed up big time in his life. But he learned valuable lessons each time and toward the end of his life he had a true appreciation of worthy worship.
And second Samuel chapter 24 the Bible records one of David’s lapses in judgment. David commits the sin of numbering the fighting men. For our 21st century mindset that does not seem to be an unreasonable act.
The person in charge of the country should probably have a good idea of how many people he can muster into a fighting force at any given time to be ready to defend their nation.
However, that's not why David did it. David did it because it was a source of pride for him. At this point in his life David had taken Israel from a loose collection of tribal leaders and had consolidated it into the most powerful nation on the earth at that time. They were the superpower of the Middle East. Sitting on his throne in Jerusalem, David knew this. He didn't need an exact count of the fighting men because he knew that he had the largest and the best trained military in his entire known world. People came from all over the Middle East and Northern Africa to see the glory of Israel, and David wanted to be able to brag to these visiting leaders of exactly how big his fighting force was.
So God sent a judgment upon Israel because of David’s actions. David is told by the prophet to build an altar to God in order to cause the plague that was coming up on Israel to stop.
David's actions here are what I want to focus on. David didn't go out and find some useless land to build his altar. David went out and found the choicest land that he Had in his Kingdom. He paid the landowner an exorbitant price for that land even though as King he simply could have taken it. David makes the statement at the end of the transaction,
“I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing."
David shows as one of the keys to touching the heart of God with our worship. It is the idea of sacrifice. Earlier we talk about the necessity of humility in our worship and that's the first cost we pay too honestly worship God. That idea should carry over into all aspects of our life.
Worship that is worthy of God involves sacrifice.
Illustration
We had a couple at our first church who was very faithful in attendance and being available to do any volunteer work that was needed at the church no matter how menial it may have seen.
Not only were they available but they did it with joy and were always giving of their time, talent, and treasure to anyone who needed it, even though they were not rich by any means.
The man got into a car accident. He wasn’t hurt, but their vehicle was totaled. It was the only vehicle they had and the only way he could get to work which was about 30 miles away. The pastor put the need up before the church on Sunday and asked us to pray that God blesses them with a new car.
The next Sunday I got there early to unlock the doors and sitting in the overhang drive through area was a new car with a card stuck in the windshield with the name of the man who needed a car.
Nobody knew who had bought that car and no one stepped forward when the pastor asked the congregation who had bought it just so he could recognize their act of incredible generosity. A few weeks later I was visiting with that member of the board at his house as he was one of my mentors in the faith and he told me that he had cancelled his 3-week trip to Israel. This was a dream of theirs and they had been saving for it for 5 years. I was astonished and asked him, “Bob this is been your dream for years how come you're canceling your trip?” He replied, “God needed the money elsewhere” and changed the subject. My mind immediately went to that family that needed the car and knew Bob had bought it.
I didn’t tell anyone about it and honestly Bob isn’t his real name because I don’t believe God wanted everyone to know the exact identity of the man because it was an act of worship that is meant to be directed to God alone.
Pretty cool isn't it when people can be that obedient to God? Is that not a testament of worthy worship?
I have to think that Jesus smile at this family’s obedience even at the cost of one of their dreams. What they did touched the heart of God and that is the goal of any worship.
Let’s end today with some simple take-aways
III. Worship that touches God’s heart
Worship that touches god's heart is directed on 2 different planes
First is the vertical- our heart relationship with God. We experience this in our time with him, we express it the world obedience to his word, and we show the world his character through our everyday actions.
Let me give you some practical examples of this-
Do you know that every time you show love to someone that doesn't deserve it that is an act of worship to God?
Do you know every time you're nice to the person at the cash register that is an act of worship to God?
Do you know but leaving a decent tip for the waitress that gives you the horrible service is an act of worship to God.
That's where the vertical relationship with God meets the horizontal relationships we have everyone else. When we obey and believe the word of God and how we act to the others in this world that touches God's heart more than a thousand songs.
Our actions which show the love and the nature of God worship our Father more than giving millions to the church. If you want to know how to truly worship our God-
Long to be like Jesus and show HIM to the world.
All Rise
Altar Call
Next week we will be talking about Jesus’ mission being our mission, but until then I challenge you to worship God in the way you live your life before this world. Show them Jesus.
