Worship That’s Pleasing To God
3/24/2003 Psalm 95:1-11 Colossians 3:15-17 Psalm 96
One day two guys, Carlton and Andrew wanted to have a special worship service for the Lord. They could not agree on what exactly they should do in the order of service. Andrew said,” why don’t we worship God in the way God has told us to worship Him in the past.” Carlton said, “man that’s getting jake. It really does not take all of that, and I’ve got something new I want us to do for worship.”
Andrew said, “look man, I’m sticking to what I know God has told us to do. If you want to do something different, you are on your own. I’m out of here.” As he left Carlton yelled at him and said, “man you just trippin. There’s more than one way to worship God. I guarantee you God is going to like what I got in mind.”
Well they both had their worship service. After the service was over, God made it perfectly clear he was pleased with Andrew’s worship service and was totally dissatisfied with Carlton’s. God refused to accept Calrton’s new idea of church.
God told Carlton,” now go and do the right thing and your worship will be pleasing to me.” Instead of doing it, Carlton got so jealous that Andrew’s worship had been accepted and his wasn’t, that he took matters into his own hands. He jumped Andrew when Andrew was off guard and beat him to death. Andrew’s blood spilled all over the ground where he lay.
Carlton committed this vicious murder and did not feel bad about it in the least bit. He did it a l because He didn’t like the fact that Andrew was willing to do what God told him to do in worship. Now you might say, Pastor Rick, “I just can’t believe somebody would do that over worship.” Well read Genesis chapter four and put in the names Cain for Carlton and Abel for Andrew and you will see it’s all true.
There is something about the worship of God that we almost feel entitled to the right “to do it our own way.” How many times have you heard people say, “well I can stay home and worship God,” or “I don’t believe in doing that to worship God”, or “I don’t think it takes all that to worship God.”
Well at the heart of each of these statements is the attitude of Cain, “I will worship God in the way I please.” There’s nothing wrong with worshipping God in the way we please, so long as the way we please is in accordance with what the word of God tells us to do. There is a difference between our preference and God’s commandments. You may want to sing two songs, somebody else 8 songs. Well the word of God says to sing. Your preference will only determine which church you go to or which service based on how much singing is done. Neither person is right or wrong because both are singing.
We all want our worship to be pleasing to God, otherwise we would not worship the Lord at all. Therefore it is of utmost importance that we worship in the way God intended. No sooner than the church got started, there were some people who became so independent, that the first thing they did was stop coming together with other believers for worship. They did not understand the concept that we are the body of Christ.
The word of God deals specifically with the temptation to just go at alone by yourself with sister pillow or brother Lake Erie and a fishing pole. We are told in Hebrews 10:23-25 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
God expects us to come to church for worship. When we read the book of Psalms, we are called numerous times to come together to worship the Lord. If we are in a living relationship to Christ, we know that to enter God’s presence, our lives need to be submitted to God. Satan will do all that He can to have us come to church with the wrong attitude.
There are probably more arguments and headaches on the way to church than anywhere else.. Why, because the devil wants you to come to worship angry, hurt, mad, resentful and full of unforgiveness. When these things are in our hearts, we may come together, but we will not worship.
A bad attitude can spread through the choir in a minute. A negative spirit from an usher can get several people growling. On the other the hand the scriptures tell us that a merry or cheerful heart is like good medicine. Proverbs 17:22 When our hearts are cheerful in worship, we have the power to make those who are sick and downcast well.
Worship of God is not to be something done just on Sundays, but it should become our lifestyle. True worship will spill over into the week—helping us to make choices, determining how we act or think in a given situation, offering a cup of cold water, loving the unlovely, practicing faithfulness in marriage or our sexual behaviors , and cause us to adjust our attitudes. It’s not possible to have worship that’s pleasing to God and it not affect how we allow Christ to work in us during the week.
When we come together to worship God, we need to recognize that we are moving into another level of being in God’s presence. Ecclesiastes tells us in Eccles. 5:1-2 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. 2Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.
Worship should always begin with the thought, “I am seeking to go into the presence of Almighty God.” In Psalm 46:10 God says, “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
When we come into the sanctuary at least five minutes before church it ought to be quiet. We’ll be doing some changes in worship with our choirs to help us produce these moments of reflection before we start the service. We should be thankful for the opportunity to examine our hearts to see if we truly are ready to worship God. Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The call, is to see what in our lives might be affecting our worship experience today. During the time of examination we can confess our gossiping , our unforgiveness, our grumbling and complaining, our envy, our jealousy, our disobedience, our greed, our failing to pay our tithes, our prayerlessness, and our unwholesome thought life.
Think of your best friend for a moment. Suppose you saw the person on Monday and you said can I talk to you for a moment, and the person responded, “no I’ve got to go do something right now.” Now suppose this happened again on Tuesday, Wed., Thurs, Friday, and Saturday.
But on Sunday, the moment he or she saw you, you got a big hug and they carried on as though Monday through Saturday did not count. “ Do we really think it’s possible to ignore a person all week long, and then get excited about being with the person and have the person be happy with you. You’d say, that’s the biggest phoney. I’ve ever met.
God calls us to be in a relationship with Him. Worship should be a part of that relationship. If we have been a little phony with God, shouldn’t we make it right first. That’s part of the reason Jesus died for us, to bring us back into a right relationship with God. Are we willing to examine our part in the relationship before the meeting takes place so that we will know the right thing to say.
After we have examined our hearts in silence and made the necessary adjustments, then we are ready to obey God’s command to come together and worship. Now whenever we come together as a group, there has to be rules because the bible says that all things are to be done in decency and in order. In order for us to allow everyone to receive the maximum worship experience, we empower our ushers to minimize distractions. The ushers are God’s holy servants commanded to maintain order in worship. They were called doorkeepers in the House of the Lord in the old testament.
All of us have an obligation to help each sense the presence of God. What are some minimum rules we need to respect the Spirit of God during worship and to respect one another? Well we should respect the word of God by either sitting and listening to it or standing and waiting until it is reading is completed. Therefore nobody should be walking or entering the service during the Responsive Reading or Scripture Reading.
We show our respect for talking to the Lord, by not walking or entering the service anytime someone is leading in prayer. We respect the choirs, soloist and dancers by staying seated until they are done, or by waiting to enter until it is over. When the ushers ask us to wait, we need to be obedient and wait. They are God’s special representatives to lead us in worship in a way pleasing to God. Resist that Cain Spirit, which says “I will worship like I want to worship and do what I want to do in service.”
We respect the pastors or the speaker by not getting up during the sermon to walk around. Now if you are on medicine, or have a medical problem and you have to get up during a sermon, that’s perfectly understandable. But if you do leave, when you come back, sit in the back of the church for the rest of the service. If the sermon is boring to you, start praying for the Pastor for the Lord to help him or her and then expect God to answer your prayer. PUSH.
There are plenty times to enter and leave the worship service. You can do it when we’re singing hymns, choruses of praise, or we are changing from one thing to another.
We respect each other’s right to enjoy worship and to receive what God may have for them to receive. This means we make up our minds not to be a distraction by talking back and forth during worship. If our ushers ask us to be quiet, let’s be quiet. Again let’s rebuke the spirit of Cain which says “I can do what I want to do”. God did not send us to worship to pass notes. If our children start to cry, let’s take them to the nursery. Again we are showing respect for others and for what God wants to do in them.
We respect each other, by being in worship. God is not pleased with us hiding in classrooms, going to the store, hanging in the bathrooms, having coffee breaks during services, having four teens in the nursery to take care of one baby, or having meetings.
When our ushers or men ask us to return to worship, let’s just do it without rolling eyes, giving looks, or talking back. We are to be family in the body of Christ. We do not need the spirit of Cain present every week. These are all simple distractions, that the devil uses to keep us from worshiping God.
Let’s move to Psalm 95 as we see what it’s like to worship God in a way that’s pleasing to God. Verse one says, “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; Now for worship to be done properly has to involve our brains, our hearts and our bodies. In the song I will celebrate, we spoke of using our minds, our hearts and our hands. We have to bring your brain to worship otherwise we will simply be doing the same old thing over and over again with no meaning whatever to us and we will be bored to death with worship.
We need our brain in worship for our imagination to praise God. God gave us an imagination to be used to honor and to praise Him. You see when worship starts, for a moment you need to shut everything out and begin to see yourself in the presence of God with millions of other believers. When we did the song Shout To The Lord, how many of us worshipped God during the song as opposed to those of us who simply let words come out of our mouths or kept our mouths closed altogether.
If you used your brains during that song, You saw yourself giving a command to the whole planet, you should have imagine a globe, or a picture of the blue earth spinning in space or a map going from city to city, and you’re telling everybody “join with me in shouting and singing to the Lord.” You should have had a vision pointing to this great throne or bright light surrounded by angels and people with a loud voice saying power and majesty, with everyone bowing in praise to the king.
If you used your brain, you saw mighty mountains shaking and rumbling and you saw the waves of the ocean bigger than any wave you’ve ever seen come crashing down against the rocks all because of God’s name echoing through the land.
You should have seen yourself with a huge smile on your face when you said I sing for joy for the works of God’s hands. The work’s of God’s hands could have caused you to imagine the beauty of your children, the beauty of a sunset, the beauty of a change God has done inside of you, or a blessing you know God did. When you sang forever I Love you, forever I’ll stand, you should have seen yourself saying Lord, I plan to serve you at 15, 45, 85, and 105.
When you go to the part of my Jesus, my Savior , you should have seen something God brought you out of and was thankful about it. Tower and refuge of strength, you could have seen a castle around you, knowing that God is protecting your life. When you got to nothing compares to the promise I have in you. Maybe you saw the temptation you’re facing, and you realize it’s not worth giving up the Lord to get it. Or you saw that, having wealth and power and praise is not worth turning away from God.
Now if you didn’t use your brain, you didn’t see anything during that song or any of the other songs we sang. All you could do was hope the song would hurry up and get over. You complained inside that it was another song, and you get a little upset because we sang it through 2 and ½ times. You put your imagination to use on something that had nothing to do with worshipping God.
But if you worshipped God during that song, you were blessed because it reminded you of the awesomeness God, of how good God has been to you, and of what God promises to do for you this week. True worship always leads to us being encouraged by God.
The second part of the verse says, Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. This verse says that we are to use our bodies in worship. God has equipped us so that when we get excited about something our bodies naturally react to it. Think about it. If tomorrow you were at a game watching your son or daughter play a basketball game, and there are two seconds left before the end of the first half and your team is down by one. The ball is thrown in and your child has the ball at half court and sees the clock is at one second, and immediately throws the ball up in the air and it goes in with nothing but nets, what does your body do.
It does it, not because you are an emotional person, but because God built you so that you could use your body in worship. What do you think the verse means with it says shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Now you may want to have a quiet worship service and there is a time to be quiet before the Lord, but God also commands us to shout in our worship.
God is telling us He expects us to be involved physically, spiritually and emotionally in our praise of Him. When He tells us in Psalm 47:1 to clap our hands in praise to God, how can we turn around and say, “I don’t clap my hands during worship because I don’t think it takes all of that.” Who is it that determines what is pleasing to God in worship? Is it the word of God or our traditions?
We find in verse two, “let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.” Most of the praise and thanksgiving we give to the Lord happens during music and singing. It we are not engaging ourselves in our praise songs, our hymns, and our choirs, we are not worshipping God in the way that God is pleased.
Notice the passage says nothing about the kind or the style of music. It didn’t say wait till your favorite choir gets up. We are to be open to worshiping God in fast songs, slow songs, and intermediate songs because there is going to be that same variation in heaven.
We need to ask, “God why am I prejudiced against this gift that you have put in somebody else.” We’re right back to Cain’s position of wanting to worship God in the way he wanted to do it, regardless of what the word of God says. Now when we come before the Lord with thanksgiving, that could include testimonies of being thankful for what God has done for us.
Everything in worship should somehow point us to giving praise and worship to Jesus Christ. There’s a difference between having good news to share and giving a testimony. A testimony is a statement of fact of how God used you to impact the life of someone else for Christ, or how God did something out of the ordinary for you in providing you His grace and strength in a particular situation.. Every testimony should leave us with the feeling, “wow, isn’t God good.”
We are going to put our good news in the bulletin. So if you have good news to share, call the office. A testimony should be as well prepared and thought out as a person singing a solo. Rehearse it so that you can give us the key elements leading to glorifying God. Practice it so that you can say it in two minutes. Otherwise the testimony becomes a distraction from worship.
We are also going to reduce our announcements and include them in the bulletin so that our worship can be as Christ focused as possible. We will change the passing of the peace from a moment in the service, to a way of life before, after, and during worship. Let’s seek to be loving and encouraging to whomever we meet from the moment we arrive at church till the moment we leave.
Sharing the love of Christ, has to become our mindset for living. Our goal is to become more Christ centered and focused during worship, because the time is set apart for God. This should be one of the most consecrated periods during our week
.
In Psalm 95 verses 3 through 7 we are given the reason for our worship. Let’s read the verses together. 3For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice,
There are three things that are not included anywhere in this psalm. The first is it does not say do this when you feel like it. It does not say do it if you’re comfortable with it. It does not say do it when everything is going your way. When verse six tells us to come, and bow down in worship and kneel before the Lord our Maker, it’s telling us, let’s come and humble ourselves in the presence of God.
When the bible tells us to lift up holy hands in worship, “why would we say, I’m not lifting up my hands because it does not take that.” Earlier today, we sang, “we are an offering.” Well whose offering are we and who is suppose to receive us an offering. When we lift our arms and our hands it’s a sign of surrender to God and a recognition that we need Him.
Many of us would rather say, “God knows my heart, I do not need to do all that.” Again there’s the attempt to worship God on our terms as opposed to what God has specifically told us to do in His Word.
The issue is not “are we happy with the way we worship”, but are we worshipping according to what God requires of us. You know something, we are not the first group of people to have a problem with the word of God in worship. That’s why verse 7 ends with the words, “today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
Our goal as a church isn’t to try to make us all alike. Our goal is to help all of us worship God in the way God intends for us to worship. When Jesus said, “those who worship God must worship God in Spirit and In Truth”, the truth He was referring to was not how I feel about it, but the truth as it is found in the word of God.
We choose whether to be a Cain or an Abel in our worship. All of our worship can be pleasing to God when we worship according to God’s word.
1. Testimony Is About What God Did To Glorify God
2. Good News Is A Blessing I Received
3. Testimonies Should Be Prepared For Worship
4. Feeling Left—Wow Isn’t God Good
5. Reducing The Announcements Focusing On Christ
6. Choosing To Be Loving Throughout Worship
H. God Gives Us The Reasons Why
Psalm 95:3-8
For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.
[4] In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. [5] The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. [6] Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; [7] for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
Today, if you hear his voice, 8] do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert,
1.God Does Not Put Restrictions On Worship
2. Feel Like It, Comfortable With It, All Is Well
3. Worship Involves Humbling Ourselves In God’s
Presence
4 Lifting Up Holy Hands—We Are An Offering
5 I’d Just Rather Not Do It My Way
6 Not Are We Happy—But Is God Pleased
7 Goal Not To Make Us All The Same
8 Goal To Make Us All True Worshipers
9 We Choose To Follow Cain Or Abel
10 All Our Worship Can Be Pleasing
Sermon Outline: Pastor Rick 3/23/03
“Pleasing God With Our Worship”
Psalm 95:1-11 Colossians 3:15-17
A. Let’s Have A Special Worship Service
1. Carlton & Andrew Plan For Worship
2. Andrew -Let’s Stick To How God Said Do It
3. Carlton The Script Is Jake I Want To Do It My Way
4. God Approves One And Rejects One
5. From Worship To Murder
6. Remember Cain, Abel, & Attitudes
B. Are We Entitled To Worship Our Own
Way In Our Own Style
1. I Can Stay Home & Worship, It Does Not Take….
2. Worship As We Please If We Worship In A Way Pleasing To God
Hebrews 10:23-25 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. [24] And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. [25] Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
3. God Tells Us To Come Worship
4. Satan Gets Busy On Sundays
5. What Attitude Comes To Worship
6. True Worship Spills Into The Week
7. Worship—Another Level Of God’s Presence
8. Eccl 5:1-2 Come To Worship To Listen
Eccles. 5:1-2
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. [2] Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.
9. Psalm 46:10 Be Still And Know
10. John 4:24 Worship In Spirit & Truth
C. Worship Begins With Being Still-Knowing God
1. Five Minutes For A Heart Examination
2. Confessing What Needs To Be Confessed
3. Being Ignored By Your Best Friend
4. The Call To Be In Relationship
D. Coming Together Requires Some Rules For Worship
1. Rules Lead To Respect And To Honor
2. Ushers—God’s Appointed Holy Officers For Orders
3. Choosing To Help Us Worship The Lord
4. When Not To Enter Or Leave A Worship Service
a. Responsive Reading & Scripture Reading
b. Prayer—Talking To The Lord Communion
c. Soloist, Choirs, Liturgical Dancers
5. Respecting The Pastors & Preachers During Sermons
a. Leave For Emergencies & Medical Situations
b. Enter & Sit In The Back
6. Enter Or Leave During Transitions, Hymns,
Choruses
7. Respect One Another’s Right To Hear From God
a. Eliminate Talking—Respect God’s Servants
b. Eliminate The Notes
c. Take Our Children To The Nursery
8. Respect The Church’s Leadership For Worship
a. Eliminate Hide n Seek & Trips
b. Eliminate Meetings
c. Respond Positively To Ushers & Men
d. Resist The Spirit Of Cain
E. Moving Toward Worship As God Intended
Psalm 95:1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
1. Worship Involves The Brain, The Heart The Body
2. Without Brain, There Is No Worship
3. God Expects Us To Use The Imagination For Worship Or We Will Be Bored To Death
4. What Is It To Worship Using Shout To The Lord All The Earth Let Us Sing
5. What Did You See During Worship In The Song
a. Planet, Maps, Mountains, Oceans
b. Smiles, Blessings, Children, Sunsets
c. Promises, Crosses, Castles, Encouragement
d. Temptations, Wealth, Money, Power
6. No Brain—Can Only Complain, Get It Over With
7. How Does One Shout Aloud Without The Body
8. What Happens Just Before The Half With Two Seconds On The Clock
9. God Equipped Us To Get Excited With Body Movement
10. A Time To Be Quiet—And A Time To Shout
11. Psalm 47:1 The Command To Clap Your Hands
12. But I Don’t Want To Clap
F. Who Determines Our Worship: God Or Traditions
Psalm 95:2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
1. Most Thanksgiving Is During The Song
2. God Is Silent On The Style & The Choir
3. Lord, Why Am I Prejudice
4. Worship Should Always Point To Christ
I. A Testimony Verses Good News To Share
