Today’s message, we’re going to be talking about worship. This is something at may appear to be simple, but yet it’s much more complex that you may think. Worship in the NIV bible is mentioned 256 times. The definition of worship is to show reverence or adoration towards God. When you want to show someone that you love them, you do everything within your power to please them, the same goes for God. everything we do, should be to please God. Most importantly it should be from our hearts. If it’s not from our hearts then it’s not worship. Our love and adoration for God should be shown through more than just singing. Telling others about God and his glory is another way of worship! Furthering our relationship with God is a way too. Psalms 91:1-9 starts with Sing to the Lord! Not just sing about the Lord, but to Him! Anyone can go about talking about God until they’re blue in the face, but worship is more than just what we say or do. When we worship God, it should turn our eyes are hearts toward Him.
Neil Marten, a member of the British Parliament, was once giving a group of his constituents a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament. During the course of the visit, the group happened to meet Lord Hailsham, then lord chancellor, wearing all the regalia of his office. Hailsham recognized Marten among the group and cried, "Neil!" Not daring to question or disobey the "command," the entire band of visitors promptly fell to their knees!
The band didn’t think about what they were told to do, they respected this man so much they did what he said. Our worship is our of obedience and dedication to the Lord, just as these men obeyed their “lord”. They didn’t think about it just as We shouldn’t have to think about our worshiping. If our hearts and turned in the right direction, then worshiping isn’t a problem.
But there are things in life that can cause road blocks within our hearts. A big one that gets in the way is when we’re going through tough times. When something bad happens the last thing on our mind is worshiping God. I know that’s the thing in my case. When everything happened, I wanted nothing to do with God. I said nope, I’m not doing it. You messed up my planned out future, I’m not talking to you. That caused me to stumble a bit in my spiritual life. My depression hit me again, and it took a lot for me come back to even wanting to worship God. I’ve identified that road block in my life and I chose God over my anger. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says “He said to me, “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me”. This verse really hit me hard. God will use our hard times, and can show us a greater power. He will reveal more about himself to us if only we’re open to receiving them. I wasn’t ready to accept what had happened. God reveals to me more through music that any other way I’ve discovered, and I really had to force myself to take in what He had to say. It’s like this for everyone going through tough times, not just me. It’s hard to jump back into things. But Through our weakness, God is strong and will reveal more. ?But what if we’re not going through hard times? Then what kind of roadblock might we have? Well, it could be you’re making excuses. You can only get out of worship what you put in. Getting into a comfort zone in my opinion is dangerous for our spiritual life. We as humans don’t like change, but God can reveal so much out of change! We need to open to experiencing God through it! I didn’t get anything out of the service because I don’t like that Emily girl, or I did’t feel God because I didn’t like that praise and worship song. Gosh those kids were noisy. Those are all excuses!! If we’re not putting in the work to prepare for what God wants us to get no matter what happens through the service, then we’re going to miss something. God isn’t just going to hit us with a ton of bricks! There have been times where looking back I can see God working in the moment, but at the time I couldn’t. I missed God at that time because I did’t put in the work and I made excuses as to why “I didn’t feel it”
Think of it this way: A friend of mine tells me about a bank that has a special offer; if I invest with them I'll get 25% interest. I think, "Yeah, that sounds okay. But I don't want to tie up a lot of money." So I invest $10,000. But my friend invests $100,000. At the end of the year he rings me up and says, "Hey, guess what? You know that bank investment? I made $25,000." "You made $25,000?" So I jump on the internet, check my account, and can you believe it, I've only made $2,500? I go racing down to the bank, march up to the counter and say, "Hey, what gives? How come my friend made $25,000 and I only made $2,500? That's discrimination ..." "How much did you invest?" "$10,000." "And how much did your friend invest?" "$100,000." "Well then, the answer's pretty obvious, isn't it? The more you invest, the more you make.”
The more time we put into preparing ourselves for God, even in the hard times, the more we will be able to get out of our worship experiences. The larger our relationship will be able to grow. Moses in Exodus 40 listened to God’s instructions on building the tabernacle, and followed them to the T. He invested everything he had to follow God’s instructions and in return God will all within the tabernacle with his Glory! This is something that they’ve never experienced before. We can feel this too, if only we’re willing to take the time and invest in God, the way that we should. Through the hard times, and even the easy times.
Although, worshiping shouldn’t only be done on Sundays, we need to be making it a lifestyle. Worshiping isn’t about getting something from God, it’s about giving to God. Psalm 34 1-3 holds the key ingredients to having a lifestyle of worship. This is something that we should be aiming to accomplish. And it says “I will praise the Lord at all times, his praise will always be on my lips, I will boast in the lord the humble will hear and be glad. Proclaim Yahweh’s greatness with me and let us exalt his name together.” As Christians we need to make sure that our walk matches our talk. We should be praising God in all things. David said “his praise shall continually be in my mouth” This requires work on our parts, we can’t expect to only worship God on a Sunday and be completely filled with his Glory. We need to be looking to Him and praising him all of the time! Our spirits need to continually be engaged with out hearts to have the authentic worship experience, Worshipping in spirit is largely associated with our emotions, we should be mindful that emotional worship is kind of like a coke being poured into a glass—you can fill the glass to the top, but once the fizz is gone, your once full glass is now only half full. We need something more. This is why we also need to be worshiping the truths in the Bible. Pslam 33 says “Your word is solid to the core” in verse 4. We worship in truth by speaking God’s praises directly from His word, A better foundation in the Word deepens our knowledge of truth and it deepens our worship. The result is more heartfelt praise and as you praise you’ll find the word of the lord is what you recognize. In verse two, David makes it clear that he will only boast in the lord. We need to be talking about the Lord on purpose to others so that they may want to meet our faithful God. What else do we live for? To give glory to God. A lifestyle worshipper demonstrated God’s faithfulness in both his words and actions. In verse three David is challenging the people to help him make God’s fame great Amon the nation. He does’t want to keep God to himself, but wants to share him with everyone. David wants other to know God, and we should want others to know God too. We shouldn’t be keeping God to ourselves. When we love something, all we want to do is talk about it right? Gavin loves Pokemon, and all he wants to do is tell me all about his Pokémon! We need to love God the way Gavin loves Pokémon! Telling those around us about God’s good works in our lives. David loved God so much he was known as “a man after God’s own heart” We need to become more like David. We should be seen as people after God’s own heart.
So today, I want you to think about if there’s been something in the way from keeping you from worshiping God with everything inside you. If so, how can we fix it? If not, is there something that we can do to keep growing in our relationship with God to make our worship for him even greater?
