TITLE: Worship - FOR GOD’S GLORY
Psalm 95:1-7
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
[2] Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
[3] 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.
INTRODUCTION:
A parable is told of a community of ducks waddling off to duck church one Sunday to hear their duck preacher. After they waddled into the duck sanctuary, the service began and the duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly.
He pounded the pulpit with his beak and said,
With these wings, there is nowhere we ducks can not go!
There is no God-given task we ducks cannot accomplish!
With these wings we no longer need walk through life.
We can soar high in the sky!
Shouts of Amen!¨ were quacked throughout the duck congregation.
The duck preacher concluded his message by exclaiming,
With our wings we can fly through life!
WE......CAN.....FLY!!!!¨ More ducks quacked out loud AMENS! in response.
Every duck loved the service.
In fact all the ducks that were present commented on what a wonderfully convicting message they had heard from their duck preacher....
and then they left the church and waddled all the way home.
APPLICATION
Too often We waddle away from worship
the same way we waddled in....
Unchanged.
It should Not Be
When we Genuinely worship God
We are responding to God’s grace
giving Him our lives
Allowing Him to change us and make us better people.
In Romans 12:1-2 Paul described worship in this way when he wrote,
Romans 12:1
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.
True worship then should be a time when we allow God to challenge and change us.
Those who waddle in should not waddle out!
Instead AS Isaiah 40:31 says,
Isaiah 40:31
they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
PRAYER
This morning I would like to examine
1. The importance of Worship
2. Having a proper attitude in worship
THE IMPORTANCE OF WORSHIP.
Someone once said,
Worship is to the church like breathing to the human body;
it is an absolute necessity.
THE CHURCH MUST WORSHIP TO LIVE.
If we are to be a healthy church,
Then we must be a worshipping church
Because it will keep us strong in everything else we do:
Evangelism,
Ministry,
Discipleship,
And fellowship
As important as worship is
Many Christians still don¡¦t understand it.
People have Misconceptions
Some Christians see worship as a FILLING STATION¡¨
where they receive the necessary resources for the normal activities of the week.
To them worship is that ¡§pause that refreshes.
Some people that view worship this way want to ...just get close enough to God to warm themselves with His love
BUT NOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE CONSUMED BY IT.
For others, worship is more like A GIANT PEP RALLY.
To them a meaningful worship service seems to be related to the loudness of the participants,
and the amount of energy expended in the process.
They tend to view worship as something done
TO them and FOR them,
RATHER THAN BY THEM TO HIM.
Now, don¡¦t misunderstand me....in some ways worship is a filling station.
When we worship we get energized to do God¡¦s work in the world.
And there is a sense in which it is also a pep rally.
We come together to encourage one another...to cheer each other on.
BUT THE BIBLE TEACHES THAT WORSHIP IS SO MUCH MORE.
The word worship someone has said means worth-ship.
We come to this place in order to worship He that is worthy.
THE SCRIPTURE TEACHES THAT ONLY GOD IS WORTHY OF OUR WORSHIP.
Revelation 4:11 says, You are worthy, O Lord to receive glory and honor and power.
So when we worship God, we are declaring His worth.
Someone has described it this way,
It is the quickening of the CONSCIENCE by His HOLINESS; ..
The nourishment of the MIND with His TRUTH,
The purifying of IMAGINATION by His BEAUTY; ...
The opening of the HEART to His LOVE; ...
The surrender of the WILL to His PURPOSE.¡¨
Worship is the response of all that MAN is to all that GOD is and does.
Worship is the intersection of our lives with God¡¦s presence and power.
In worship we experience the truth of James 4:8 as we ¡§draw near to God and He draws near to us.
Worship then is man and God communing together.
And it is vitally important to our life as a church and our life as a believer
HOW CAN WE BE SURE THAT AUTHENTIC WORSHIP HAPPENS?
How can we encounter the grace of God in worship so that we can be transformed and changed into better disciples?
Well if we are to experience genuine worship,
then we need to have a proper attitude in three areas.
(1) The first is a PROPER attitude about GOD
Some theologians have described God with the phrase,
Wholly other
Meaning that God is not one of us, nor is He like us.
God IS beyond anything we could imagine.
He is greater than we can comprehend,
more magnificent than we could ever describe.
« He is GOOD beyond description,
« POWERFUL beyond description,
« HOLY beyond description.
He is completely independent of this world,
His involvement with humanity is purely by choice...not the result of any need or limitation on His part.
He is WHOLLY OTHER
TRANSITION
The prophet Isaiah wrote of a time of worship in which he had a visions where he learned What God is like
Isaiah 6:1-5
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. [2] Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. [3] And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
[4] At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
[5] "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."
APPLICATION
He heard the angels saying, ¡§Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory!
The Hebrew language has no words to express comparison.
In English we have words like good, better, best or big, bigger, biggest.
But the Hebrew doesn’t have words like this,
so to express comparison they use repetition.
Many times in both Old and New Testaments, you will find words repeated to express intensity or comparison.
If the Hebrews wanted to describe great joy, they said, joy, joy.¡¨
If they wanted to speak of great fear they said, ¡§fear, fear.
Even Jesus practices this when he would say
Verily, Verily I say unto you...¡¨
When He said this He was saying, What I am about to say is really, really TRUE!¡¨
Now, when the Jews wanted to say that something was the very best......
they repeated the word three times.
THIS OCCURS ONLY TWICE IN THE BIBLE, both times in very interesting places.
One is found in Revelation, 8:13 where John sees the judgments of God being poured out upon the earth.
A great angel in the form of an eagle flies through the heavens crying out,
Rev. 8:13
"Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth,
The angel is saying here that there could be no greater time of trouble, no greater woe.
The only other time this repetition is used is in Isaiah 6
when the angels cry, ¡§HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is filled with His glory!¡¨
In other words they are saying,
GOD IS THE HOLIEST BEING IN ALL CREATION.
There is no one....nothing....that even approaches God’s holiness.
Worship begins with this attitude about God....
this awe...
this reverence....
this awareness of God¡¦s supreme greatness.
ILLUSTRATION
Psalm 95:3-4
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.
The Psalmist challenges us to take a tape measure and stretch it from the deepest place on earth, which would be in the bottom of some sea, to the highest peak in the Himalayan mountain range¡Xearth¡¦s highest spot¡Xand in so doing see that our God is still infinitely greater.
And Someone that awesome,
that great, is deserving of our worship and praise.
True worship begins with this attitude of reverence and respect for Who God is.
TRANSITION
But it doesn¡¦t stop there because a proper attitude about GOD leads to....
(2) .... a proper attitude about OURSELVES
When we are confronted with the holy perfection of our God,
our own imperfection stands out like a dark stain on a white shirt.
We become painfully aware of our own sin.
Simon Peter experienced this
Luke 5:1-8
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, [2] he saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. [3] He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
[4] When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."
[5] Simon answered, "Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."
[6] When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. [7] So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
[8] When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"
APPLICATION
All this made Peter realize that he was in the presence of not just a man, but the living Christ.
When the prophet Isaiah stood in the presence of our Holy, Holy, Holy God he exclaimed,
Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.
there is something about being in the presence of God
HE OPENS OUR EYES
GOD DESIGNED WORSHIP FOR THIS PURPOSE.
Through worship we come to see ¡§THINGS¡¨ as God sees them and the things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace
In the 73rd Psalm the writer says...I envied the prosperity of the wicked...until I entered the sanctuary of God and then I understood
Worship allows us to stop our hectic lifestyle long enough to re-evaluate our lives.
ILLUSTRTATION
There is a story of a wealthy American entrepreneur who went on a hunting safari in Africa. He chose a seasoned guide and hired local natives to carry the necessary gear. Aggressive and driven, the business mogul wanted to go much faster than his guide from the very first day. And every day after that, he pushed and drove his bewildered safari team from morning to night, until they could hardly stand. Finally the burden bearers stopped and would go no farther; they would not stir from where they sullenly reclined in the shade. The American tycoon, used to instant obedience, was furious.
¡§Get up, Get up!¡¨ he yelled. ¡§Push on!¡¨
But they all just sat there not even meeting his eyes. The impatient man stormed at his guide, ¡§What¡¦s happening here? Why won¡¦t they go on?¡¨
The guide replied, ¡§They must stay here all day. They won¡¦t move, no matter how much you shout and bully. We have been going too hard and fast, and WE MUST LET OUR SOULS CATCH UP WITH OUR BODIES.
APPLICATION
So often we are like that tycoon.
We rush through life until crisis comes and then we learn the hard way that we are designed to stop regularly and worship our Heavenly Father....
and in so doing let our souls catch up.
We need time with God....
time to rest in his presence....
time to get His perspective on our lives...
time to ask for and receive His forgiveness.
TRANSITION
So authentic worship requires a proper attitude about God which leads to a proper attitude about ourselves which should lead to one more thing...
3. ...A PROPER ATTITUDE ABOUT OUR DAILY LIVES.
Genuine worshipers see every task of every day an opportunity to worship God.
They follow Paul¡¦s guidance in Romans 12:1 and worship by presenting their lives to God as living sacrifices.
worship is not a one-day-a-week event.
It must be a lifestyle.
ILLUSTRATION
I can do a wedding in about ten minutes with my eyes almost closed.
But a marriage THAT TAKES WORK.
Now weddings are important.
They are beautiful,
impressive,
emotional,
and sometimes expensive.
We are careful to be at the right place at the right time and to say the right words.
Every detail of the service is important, but all the same, weddings are easy.
Marriage on the other hand, is complex and difficult.
It¡¦s in marriage that we work out every detail
of the words,
the promises,
and the commitments that we speak at the wedding.
In marriage we develop the long,
rich life of faithful love that the wedding promises and announces.
The event of the wedding
without the life of marriage doesn¡¦t amount to very much.
If there is no daily love shared....
No continuing tenderness.....
No forgiveness asked and received...
No attentive listening....
No creative giving......
No lifestyle of blessing each other as husband and wife....
Then the wedding service is a sham and the marriage is an empty CHARADE.
APPLICATION
In the same way if worship does not translate into a changed life,
it is a sham.
You see, God is not as much interested in the activities of worship as He is in the actions of life.
In Isaiah 1:12-17 He expresses this when He says,
Isaiah 1:12-17
Why do you keep parading through my courts with your worthless sacrifices? [13] The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils! Your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath day, and your special days for fasting even your most pious meetings are all sinful and false. I want nothing more to do with them. [14] I hate all your festivals and sacrifices. I cannot stand the sight of them! [15] From now on, when you lift up your hands in prayer, I will refuse to look. Even though you offer many prayers, I will not listen. For your hands are covered with the blood of your innocent victims. [16] Wash yourselves and be clean! Let me no longer see your evil deeds. Give up your wicked ways. [17] Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Fight for the rights of widows.
CONCLUSION
In God’s eye worship is much more than what happens Sunday mornings.
It is what happens the rest of the week.
Christians who want to experience genuine worship respond on Sundays as did Isaiah by saying,
GOD, HERE AM I SEND ME. TAKE MY LIFE AND ACCEPT IT AS AN OFFERING TO YOU. USE IT AS YOU SEE FIT.
