THE YEAR OF WORSHIP
Lakeview Baptist Church
Sermon Series: "Worship"
January 7, 2024
Scripture: Romans 11:33-36
Romans 11:33-36 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller? 35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? 36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
Believers and non-believers alike will review 2023 and we will give it a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” We would describe 2023 like we would describe a person we know, giving the year attributes like “great”, “bad”, or “exciting.” Each of us made a big investment in 2023; 8,760 hours to be exact. Some events in 2023 were out of our control. However, for the most part, we made the decisions most of the time.
Thinking back on 2023, where does the year stand in relation to other years?
Personally, 2023 was a particularly good year for me. While there were negative issues, I will look fondly on 2023.
For example, we had been praying for Jacob’s cancer of the brain to be gone, and before Christmas, we received the news that the cancer was indeed gone.
Lakeview Baptist Church saw growth in 2023. We had fifteen baptisms, twenty-nine joined the church. I haven’t seen the 2023 financial report, but initial reporting indicates that we will have a strong financial year heading into 2024.
However, I know that for some of you, including members of my family, it was a year that they are more than happy to bid “adieu.”
Whether it was a good or bad year, we can lift the plastic sheet of our etch-a-sketch of 2023 and look at 2024 with a blank page. What does 2024 hold in store for us?
I am struck by the idea that in 365 days, we will be at this same crossroads: reviewing 2024 and looking forward to 2025.
At the end of next year will we look back upon it as one that we dedicated to the Lord or will we have made “us” the center of influence. Personally, I have messed up enough in my life, that I am ready to concentrate on making sure Christ on the throne of my heart.
How do I do that, you might ask? Well for the next few weeks we are going to look at “Worship” as the central theme of 2024.
January 7, 2024 – The Year of Worship – Romans 11:33-36
January 14, 2024 – The Beauty of His Holiness – 1 Chronicles 16:29 -bringing God glory.
January 21, 2024 – Taking Life Seriously – Jeremiah 1:5
January 28, 2024 – The Graveyard Shift – Psalm 134 – how and when are we to bring praise to God.
February 4, 2024 – Sing Praise – Psalm 108:1-4 – singing with the melody of the heart.
Loathing the Fake
I loathe things that are fake when they are being passed off as being real. For example, when I was in high school, I lent a classmate my lunch money one day and he promised he would pay it back the next day. Well, he did not. When I approached him, he gave me his 14-karat gold ring to hold until he could get my money. I said OK. He encouraged me to wear it, to keep it safe. I did and the next morning my finger was green where the ring was. You guessed it, it was fake. I never got my lunch money back, but I kept the fake ring to remind me of this important lesson.
Throughout my life I have seen lies and deceit used in a “devil may care” attitude. Pun intended. Lies and deceit are served like some buffet line. As you walk through life, the buffet of lies and deceit are served. It is up to us whether we accept the lie and deceit as truth and we take it.
Lies and deceit are a by-product of “fake” in the world and as a result, I have become quite cynical about some things. I would say that if you live long enough you will be tricked. If you let it, cynicism will plague you like corrosion on a ship.
Throughout the Bible, we see many examples of “fake worship.” Worship gone bad.
The worship offered to idols is easily recognizable looking from the outside. In place of worshiping the One, True God, the Children of God worshipped other gods:
• Baal
• Ashtaroth
• Groves
• images, both male and female.
If your flock or crops needed help, Baal was ready to receive your allegiance and worship. Sexual perversions are found in Ashtaroth and Aphrodite.
I have studied the cults. I have taught classes on what they teach and compare it with the truths of the Bible. Jim Jones and David Koresh gave us bigger than life examples of false doctrine, teaching, and worship.
The most frightening form of false worship is not the practice of pagan or idolatrous cults. Not at all. It is the false worship that permeates the Church that causes me to shudder. The purity of doctrine has been watered down and in some instances been washed away in false teaching.
Some churches attempt to manufacture corporate worship. I will boldly declare that they have missed the point of Biblical worship.
I have heard that when the Secret Service trains agents on how to spot a counterfeit, they only study the real thing. By knowing the real thing “like the back of your hand,” you will be able to spot a counterfeit bill easily.
I would encourage each of us to study real worship, so that fake worship is easily identified.
TRUE WORSHIP CANNOT BE MANUFACTURED
But I have learned that no matter what, true, Godly worship cannot be manufactured. Worship cannot be organized just because someone on a stage is encouraging you to participate.
The Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the believers in Rome, answers the question, “What is true worship?” He gives an easy method of understanding worship and how to achieve it.
Technically, the Greek word for “worship” is latreuo meaning “to minister to God, render religious homage, serve.”
GOD’S WAY TO WORSHIP - IN AWE OF HIM!
Since we are beginning in the thirty third verse of this eleventh chapter, it would be helpful to know how we arrived where the Apostle Paul breaks out in Worship of the LORD? A slight review of this epistle will help us to understand.
Chapters 1-3
In the first three chapters of the epistle to the Romans, Paul lays out the theological position that all men need salvation and stand guilty of sin before God.
Chapters 4-6
The next three chapters find Paul speaking about “Justification.” The “just-as-if-I’d” never sinned is a marvelous unveiling of God’s mercy for fallen man.
Beginning in Chapter Seven
Following these chapters, Paul begins to lay out how to live the Christian life in the world. And in chapters 7-11, Paul describes God as a Righteous and Just God, ruling over both the “Children of the Lord” and the Gentiles. He declares that Israel’s rejection of the Messiah is not final.
32 For God confined them all in disobedience, in order that he could have mercy on them all.
Overwhelming Worship
With the doctrinal portion concluded, Paul cannot contain the mercy and magnitude of the LORD. He breaks out in worship of his personal Savior. Remember, Paul met the resurrected Jesus. Christ trained Paul for three years. For Paul, theology and worship cannot be separated for worship and teaching are two sides of the same coin. Knowing God is expressed in an outpouring of love to the Creator. There was so much mercy, grace and power exhibited by God that he became overwhelmed by his LORD.
STEP ONE – MARVEL / BE IN AWE OVER GOD
Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”
The idea that God has a great plan of salvation, including both Israel and the Gentiles is too much for Paul. Praise and worship consume Paul. He clearly understands “…how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”
The ways of the LORD are far beyond what man can recognize and/or understand. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”
Paul knows that mortal man can never fully comprehend the ways of God, he simply tells us to be in awe of the plan of salvation.
In the second chapter of Romans Paul says that God’s ways are inexhaustible, especially concerning His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering. (Romans 2:4). Surely those areas of Gods riches, given to man, should cause us to break forth in Joy.
Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. 32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
STEP TWO – CONSIDER THE LORD
Romans 11:32-36 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. 33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller? 35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? 36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
We humans tend to think that everything is about us. We get the idea that we have a life to live, and we oversee our own destiny. We make informed decisions about our futures and then watch those plans unravel into a heap before our very eyes.
We are a generation that has grown up with the microwave. We do not want to wait, so we find ways of getting more things done in a quicker manner. But quicker does not always mean better. Things cooked in a microwave do not have enough time for the flavors to penetrate the food as if you were cooking something in a crock-pot. There is no comparison, and yet we all own microwaves.
Throughout the Bible we are cautioned to not get ahead of ourselves, and the worship of God is no different. Listen to the following verses. Seriously, slowly read these verses.
Psalms 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
Psalms 37:34 Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.
Proverbs 20:22 Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.
The idea of “waiting” in the Bible is the same as we would use words like contemplate, consider, deliberate, turn over in your mind, meditate and reason to describe this process.
• Why is it so hard to take time to read our Bible every day?
• Why is it so difficult to find time to “shut out the world, enter your closet and pray?”
• Why is “prayer meeting and Bible study” the least attended service that we have?
Simply, we are the microwave generation. We do not want to take the time to read our bible every day. We do not want to take the time to pray. We find other activities to replace prayer meetings and bible study. I have found that if you find where people invest their time and money, you will find out a lot about that person. My next-door neighbor has a nice fishing boat in his driveway. The boat is not there for show; he consistently uses it. That is where he invests his time and money.
DO YOU THINK CHRISTIANS ARE ANY DIFFERENT? IF A TEAM OF PEOPLE FOLLOWED YOU AROUND FOR THE NEXT WEEK WITH STOP WATCHES AND CLIP BOARDS TO TRACK YOUR EVERY ACTION, WHAT WOULD THEY REPORT ABOUT YOU? WHERE DO YOU INVEST YOUR TIME AND MONEY? HOW MANY OF US WOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOUR FINDINGS PRESENTED AT THE NEXT BUSINESS MEETING?
This is the point at which Paul has led his readers.
1. Stop what you are doing.
2. Give it some Time.
3. Consider the Works of God
John Piper tells the story:
One of the highest points in my short, six-year teaching career in the Biblical Studies department at Bethel College was in the spring of 1977. I had spent the entire semester on Romans 9-11 leading about a dozen advanced Greek students through the rigorous exegesis of these three chapters. It was the final class of the year, and I was drawing the final “arcs” on the board to sum up all the relationships between all the units. I drew one last arc over all three chapters, from one side of the board to the other, and underlined Romans 11:36 as the ultimate point of the entire section: “From him, through him, and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.” Before I could turn around, these twelve students—some of the brightest I ever had began to sing the doxology.
I didn’t ask them to. I didn’t plan it. It just came out. And that’s the way it was for Paul when he wrote this. He comes to the end of these three chapters on the ultimate purposes of God to show the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, and he breaks into doxology as he closes. All theology, rightly grasped, leads the mind and the heart to doxology. The story of God is about the glory of God. All revelation of the ways of God leads to exultation over the wonders of God.
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
1. Our worship of God should not be manipulated, contrived, or required at the banging of a gong.
2. Worship should not wait until someone tells us it is time to worship.
3. Worship is a direct result of a relationship, and a realization of what God has done. It should come without being asked.
WORSHIP SHOULD BE A NATURAL OUTPOURING TO OUR GOD
Worship should flow out of the believer just as worship was instantaneous for the four beasts and the twenty-four elders in the book of Revelation.
Revelation 4:9 And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, 10 The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
CONCLUSION
Worship should not be summoned as the ringing of the bell for Pavlov’s dog. It should be our second nature to break forth in joy and give God the glory He deserves. That is my desire for this new year of 2024, to see us truly worship the LORD.
"Then sings my soul my Savior God to Thee, `How great Thou art, how great Thou art!'"
