The Altar of Worship
Intro:
So we have been talking about what it means to Come to the Altar.
We have learned that the altar, as found in the OT is no more.
The Word means: a place to approach, acknowledge, and respect God.
Since we have the HS inside of us, we can approach God anywhere.
Last week we covered one of the main ways we approach God: prayer!
We turned in Scripture and found God has quite a bit to say about prayer,
Jesus often went in Prayer
and Jesus modeled prayer for us.
I also provided another methodology of prayer: ACTS prayer.
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication
Today we are going to look at the other way we can approach God: Praise!
Commonly you may think of Praise and Worship, but real quick: Praise is lifting our voices, Worship is a lifestyle!
Worship is presenting your body as a living and holy sacrifice: its living your life in accordance to the Word of God, so that it is pleasing to God.
Praise is lifting your voice to God. When you think about Praise, you should quickly think of Psalms! Psalms is all about PRAISE! The Psalms are SONGS!
Words commonly found in Praise are: bless, exalt, extol. Glorify, magnify, thank, confess
To PRAISE God is to call attention to HIS GLORY!
Think about the song we just sung:
Oh, Lord, lead us to Your kingdom
Bring us back to freedom
How we need You, God
How we need You, God
Oh, Lord, fill us with Your spirit
Guide us by Your presence
How we need You, God
Oh Lord, we will sing Your praises
You are our salvation
Be our strength and song
How we need You, God
That is a contemporary song, and it is ALL ABOUT PRAISING GOD!
Its all about God! His spirit, kingdom, the freedom HE gave us, His presence in our life, the salvation HE bought us, our NEED of HIM!
It’s all about Him!
I am a lover of praise music! Man there are songs out there that just put me right in the zone:
Oh, Come to the Altar
I surrender
Like a Fire!
Every great praise song captures the essence of what Scripture teaches us, and most of them utilize God’s WORD found in Psalms!
What we need to do is this: discover what God says about praising Him – and DO IT!
Story:
Driving to TN, I didn’t know the way, but I knew the destination. For directions I relied on someone else. That person just happened to fall asleep. I didn’t know where to turn. I thought the sign would say the right thing. Unfortunately, it did not! See I was looking for one city, but did not know that there was another city between the two. So I missed the turn and when Jeanie woke up we were an HOUR past our turn.
So what did I do? I got a GPS! It doesn’t fall asleep!
So now, I type in the destination: it pops up a map and says is this where I want to go? SURE IS!
Then it pops up a couple routes I can take, highlights the route, and if I follow its guidance I will reach my destination!
If it says turn right, but I choose to turn left – then I will not reach my destination without detours that can be quite painful! Now: sometimes the GPS takes us some very interesting routes to get us to our ultimate destination, but we get there!
One time it took us through a town, the road suddenly turns into a boat ramp. There is water in front of me and a sign that says ferry runs every 30 minutes! Interesting!
Guys if we know where we want to go, and we have the directions in front of us, we should follow them. Not following them is disobedience! AMEN – Sometimes the route God chooses makes us uncomfortable! Makes us think: well this is interesting; but I promise you – its part of the journey!
For some, singing praise is uncomfortable. But it is part of the journey AMEN! Just remember this: it is ALL ABOUT HIM!
Colossians 3:16
SINGING psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs – really quick, notice the WORD OF GOD says we can sing more than hymns (pause for laughter) – with GRATITUDE in our hearts!
When you are grateful, you look different – you smile! There is a uplifted spirit in you!
Remember those lyrics from the song we sand: Lord, FILL US WITH YOUR SPIRIT!
I promise you, the HS is like Positive and encouraging k-love! It will convict you of your sins, then help you overcome them – then encourage you – then motivate you – and when you have that spirit in your heart and it fills you, and you fan the flame – you will have GRATITUDE in your voice and on your face!
But check this out: God says: SING - did you catch that? If God says it, we do it!
We ask God for guidance, so we should follow where God says to go!
His word in Colossians says SING!
Colossians says let the MESSAGE about the MESSIAH DWELL RICHLY among us.
Dwell – oy-kah-o - means to “make a home”, it is the essence of living comfortably because it is one’s residence!
So what God is saying is that we should have the message about the Messiah so comfortably in our life that it is HOME there! But God adds a word: RICHLY!
Richly – ploo-see-oce – ABUNDENTLY, MUCH in quantity – OVERFLOWING!
The message of the Messiah should be overflowing from us! It should pour out in teaching and in SONG!
I tell you one thing: when you are going through a trial, having a BAD day – have you ever sung a praise to God? If you have, I bet your attitude changed! I bet your DAY changed! You can’t be sad and gloomy when you are singing praises to God!
Psalm 5:11
9:2
51:14
59:16
63:7
What about when you are having a great day? Cheerful day?
James 5:13
Covers both! Suffering = pray, praise
Cheerful = praise!
