Making an Impact:
Adoring God in Worship
INTRODUCTION: This morning we’ve decided to change our regular order of service in order to better accomplish our purposes. Since our topic is “Adoring God in Worship,” we wanted to allow time for us to worship and to hear from God’s Word. And, since everything that takes place on Sunday morning is considered worship the sermon, the offering, the songs, communion, and our prayers we decided to mix it up a bit today. I’m going to preach the sermon in three parts and I’m going to give you my outline in advance:
Part I Revering Worship
Part II Rejoicing Worship
Part III Rethinking Worship
After Part I, we’re going to spend time focusing on the awesomeness and holiness of God. After Part II, we’ll celebrate God by offering Him songs of joy and gladness. We’ll then close our corporate worship time by taking communion together.
PART I Revering Worship
The way we use words is interesting to me. Each generation seems to have its own lingo. When I was in high school we used words like, hip, cool, far-out, out-of-sight, rad, and groovy -- I’ve tried to bring this word back but whenever I use it, people just stare at me and think I’m out to lunch maybe I need to wear my Leisure Suit and start listening to 8-Tracks again!
Words express a common understanding, and phrases serve as code words, or shortcuts.
Just this week we were talking to our girls about possible sayings they could use when they’re at school together. It would be like their secret code, that no one else could understand. When I was young, my family used a “whistle” like sound it went something like this… [ demonstrate ] Whenever my sisters would make this sound I’d come running to their rescue.
The word, Awesome has been used a lot whether you’re a child of the 60’s like I am, or if you happen to be a bit younger. Awesome can refer to the weather, a sports team, a meal, a car, a CD, a conference, or is sometimes used in our house when the girls sleep late on a Saturday morning which isn’t very often.
You know what? God has taught me just recently that He alone is awesome. In fact, I’ve been convicted that I should save this word awesome to describe only Him. Sure, there are other things that I think are great, but God alone is awesome -- He is the only one I should stand in awe of.
One way this word awe can be translated is fear. To be filled with awe means that we are filled with a reverential fear before the presence of the Almighty. The word conveys a sense of holy terror. It’s what should happen when we come into the very presence of the Thrice-Holy God. To be filled with awe means that we have transcended our earthly view and have caught a glimpse of the eternal glory of the living God.
The early church had something that is often pretty foreign to us in the 20th Century -- they were in awe of God. They knew that He alone was Awesome!
Listen to how Chuck Colson describes the contrast between the first century believers and believers today. This is from his book, The Body (pages 381-383):
As individuals and as the corporate body of Christ, we need to know what our predecessors in less sophisticated times knew. We need to know the fear of the Lord -- the overwhelming, compelling awe and reverence of a holy God. We can feel that awe pulsating through the book of Acts...so filled were they with this awe that they could face a hostile world with holy abandon. Nothing else mattered, not even their lives.
If you have your Bibles I want to show you how that sense of awe pulsates through the book of Acts...
Acts 2:43: Everyone was filled with awe... This verse can also be translated this way: "Everyone kept on feeling a sense of awe."
Acts 3:10: They were filled with wonder and amazement.
Acts 5. After the Holy Spirit dealt with the lying of Ananias and Sapphira, the whole church was attentive to God. In fact, I’m sure their fear of God skyrocketed when they saw both of them fall down dead after they lied to the Holy Spirit. Acts 5:11 says, "Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events."
Acts 9:31: Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord. The early church grew in numbers not through advertising or even their programming -- it grew because the believers lived in the fear of the Lord.
Acts 19:17: After some unbelievers had tried to use the name of Jesus when casting out demons, and had been beaten up in the process, the church had another dose of the fear of the Lord injected into their bloodstream. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with ear, and the NAME OF THE LORD JESUS WAS HELD IN HIGH HONOR.
Let me ask you a question. Do you hold the name of Jesus in high honor? When you contemplate God, what comes to your mind? When you think about God, are you in awe of Him? It was A.W. Tozer who said that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Friends, if we viewed God with awe and with holy fear, we would respond as the Apostle John did on the island of Patmos, when he came face to face with the Almighty. Listen to what he writes in Revelation 1:17: When I saw Him, I fell at His feet, as though dead.
When John had a vision of the Holy One, he became like a dead man. When the church in the book of Acts focused on God, they were seized with fear and overcome with a sense of awe. What about us? What about me?
A number of words are translated “worship” in the Bible. The one used most frequently means to bow down and do homage. Unlike animals, we have a drive to bow down and pay homage to something. We want to offer reverence and respect for God that’s how he made us. But, sometimes our pride gets in the way and we end up worshipping the created instead of the Creator.
In worship, God is asking us to do something that we were uniquely designed to do but at the same time, what our sinful nature rebels against. The key, it seems to me, is to develop such a high view of God that we are overwhelmed by His awesomeness and catapulted into worship.
Tozer continues: So necessary to the church is a lofty concept of God that when that concept in any measure declines, the church with her worship and moral standards declines with it. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.
Consequences
I can think of at least three things that happen when we surrender our high opinion of God.
When we no longer view Him as Awesomely Holy and Marvelously Majestic, #1, we will backslide. When we stop thinking correctly about God we will stop honoring Him with our lives. Jeremiah 2:19:
Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me, declares the Lord the Lord Almighty.
Related to this, a second thing will happen -- we will sin more often. Sin will start to look good to us when we no longer stand in awe of God. When you no longer fear God, there is nothing to keep you from sinning. Psalm 36:1:
An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Third, when a church surrenders its lofty view of God, it will become ineffective and powerless. Things might look OK on the surface, but things are not good underneath. The foundation of all Christian belief and behavior is the awesomeness of God. If we don’t understand this our perspective in every other area will be adversely affected.
How To Regain Your Awe
Here’s another way to say it: Your view of who God is will determine how you live! And, our corporate understanding of God will in large part determine our future direction as a church.
Some of you need to repent of your wrong view of God. This word repent has a lot of baggage associated with it, but it literally means to “change your mind” about something. God is not just there to meet your needs, or to make you happy. He is the awesome God of the universe. He expects total obedience and complete surrender.
Go back to Acts 19 with me. After the text says that the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor, a radical transformation took place in the lives of people. Again, once you have a proper view of God, your behavior will change. Take a look at Acts 19:18: Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.
Do you see it? Since the name of Jesus was held in high honor, many people openly confessed their sins. If we are not in awe of Jesus, most of us will just continue living in bondage to our sins.
What about you? As you focus on His holiness, his majesty, his awesomeness, what is He saying to you? What do you need to confess? Is there something standing in the way of your relationship with Him? Repent of it. Repent of your casual view of God. Allow this time of corporate worship to restore your reverence for God.
Hebrews 12:28-29 says Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and AWE, for our God is a consuming fire.
We’re going to worship God right now let’s do it acceptably in a spirit of reverence and awe like Isaiah did when he came face-to-face with holiness personified.
READING OF ISAIAH 6 [ from congregation ]
PART II Rejoicing Worship
Our corporate worship must first of all, be reverent. Second, worship is to be rejoicing. Let’s look back at Acts 2:43, “Everyone was filled with awe [ that’s reverent worship ]. Now drop down to verses 46-47: “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.” [ that’s rejoicing worship]
This whole passage suggests that there was a sustained atmosphere of praise and worship which permeated throughout the early church. They were filled with joy and eagerness as they met to praise God. There can be no doubt about their joy, for they are described as having “glad and sincere hearts.” The Greek word translated joy indicates an exuberant, overflowing rejoicing, a joy that simply has to be expressed.
These believers couldn’t wait to get together to worship a sense of expectancy filled their services. I wonder if we have that same sense of excitement and joy as we approach God?
In a major study that was published in Leadership Journal, the authors discovered that of the 75 million Americans who attend church on a weekly basis, fewer than 1/3 say that they feel God’s presence there. That makes me sad and it no doubt grieves God. How tragic that so many churchgoers feel like they can’t find God in a worship service. It was Vance Havner who said that too many services start at 11:00 sharp and end at 12:00 dull. This is so far removed from Psalm 16:11 which says that, “In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Friends, we have so much to be joyful about, don’t we? God has done so much for us, that we should break out in rejoicing on a regular basis. We serve a God who loves us, a Savior who forgives us, a Lord who provides for all of our needs, and a Spirit who empowers us.
When you read the Psalms, there is no way to not be gripped by the celebratory aspect of worship. God is a God who wants us to praise Him with our whole heart, mind, soul, and emotions.
Psalm 33:1-3 Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. Praise the Lord with the harp; make music on the ten-stringed lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully and shout for joy.
Psalm 47:1 Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.
Psalm 71:23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you I, whom you have redeemed.
Psalm 98:4 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music…
It’s always struck me how many of us change when we come to a church service. Somehow we think we shouldn’t smile. We come with solemn faces. And yet, when we watch the Pontiac Indians play football or have a party at our house, we suddenly become excited and enthusiastic.
Now, let me be quick to add that when I was candidating here at PBC, I was really attracted to the joy quotient here. In fact, after my first visit, I flew back to Mexico and told Beth all about the church. The first thing I said was that this church is full of joyful people.
Friends, God wants us to be joyful in our worship. Believe it or not, it’s possible to have both reverent and rejoicing hearts. I love Psalm 66:1-2 because it puts rejoicing with reverence, joy is coupled with holiness. Our gladness is to spring out of God’s awesomeness: “Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of His name; make His praise glorious! Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds!’” Did you catch it? We are to shout with joy because He is awesome; our rejoicing is to flow out of our reverence.
In that spirit of joy and gladness, let’s read Psalm 148 together:
SCRIPTURE READING PSALM 148
We are to be involved in revering worship by seeing God as awesome. We are to be involved in rejoicing worship by praising Him with hearts filled with joy and gladness. Now, let’s talk about the third aspect of worship I’m calling it rethinking worship.
Part III Rethinking Worship
When we hear the word worship it’s easy for us to think only of what happens here on Sunday morning. And, when we think of Sunday morning, many of us think worship is what takes place when we sing songs. Let me see if I can help us rethink that.
First of all, in this service, everything that takes place is worship. Worship can be defined as worth-ship, or ascribing worth to God. If that’s true, then the prayers, the praises, and the preaching are all elements of worship. Preaching and prayer are just as much elements of corporate worship as is our praise.
Second, worship is not something done to us, or even for us, but by us. Corporate worship, properly understood is active, not passive. We shouldn’t evaluate a service based upon the quality of the music, or even the sermon. Rather, we should ask, “Did I fully engage in corporate worship this morning?”
Third, worship is to be part of our lifestyle. Try not to think of worship only in terms of what happens here on a Sunday morning. Remember that the early church’s worship was both formal and informal they met in the “Temple Courts” and in their “homes.” And, while they met daily for worship with others, our challenge today is to worship on a daily basis, even though we might not be with other believers all the time. Worship needs to be thought of as less of a service, and more of what can be referred to as 24/7 Worship 24 hours a day, 7 days a week which, by the way, is a “groovy” name for our High School ministry…
The key then, to rethinking worship is to see it as God does that there are both corporate, and private elements to it. There is a time to gather formally with others, and a time to worship informally but, we are to worship at all times, wherever we are.
We worship God as part of our lifestyle by offering ourselves to Him, in every area of our lives. True worship is the living of our life in a way that is pleasing to God. Our singing and our prayers are only the outward manifestations of a life lived for the glory of God. Romans 12:1 defines worship as surrender. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God which is your spiritual worship.”
How do we offer ourselves to God? How do we engage in a lifestyle of spiritual worship?
By living a surrendered life that honors God.
By treating others with dignity and grace.
By being faithful and loving to your spouse.
By being the kind of parent God wants you to be.
By being the kind of child or teenager that God desires you to be.
By seeing your job as a mission, or calling, from God.
By using your spiritual gifts to serve Christ.
By giving faithfully and generously to God’s kingdom work.
Tragically, we often get things turned around. We tend to worship our work, we work at our play, and we play at our worship. That’s not how God intends for it to be.
Friends, the key to rethinking worship is to see God as bigger than most of us do. When our view of Him is small, other things can easily take His place in our lives. When we see Him for who He really is we will revere Him, we’ll rejoice in Him, and we’ll rethink worship so that it becomes an integral part of our lives on a daily basis.
A couple weeks ago, Beth and Becky (our 4-year-old) were in Wal-Mart. As they were going down the aisles, Becky stopped and pointed to a big bathroom rug that was shaped like a foot. As she was looking up at it, she said, “Mom, do you think that’s how big Jesus’ foot is?”
You see, in her mind, Jesus is huge! It would only figure that He has big feet because He’s a big Savior to her.
That’s really what the word, magnify means in Psalm 34:3 when David cries out: O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together. When we magnify something, we make it bigger so we can see it from a new perspective. When we make God bigger in our lives, we see things that were previously hidden by our myopic faith. When we see Jesus in all His splendor and beauty, we can’t help but live lives of worship.
You know, that’s one reason why I think Jesus wants us to celebrate Communion. He knew that we would have the tendency to shrink our view of Him and to forget about Him. That we would allow other things in our lives to crowd out the holy. That’s why we take time each month to allow the bigness of Jesus to break through our busyness, our flippancy, and our selfishness.
To help us get ready to come to the Lord’s Table, let’s focus on the bigness and the beauty of Jesus…
(Song: “How Beautiful")
The beauty of Jesus motivated the early church to focus on 6 key lifestyle values -- we’re addressing one each Sunday, using the acrostic IMPACT:
Instruction in God’s Word
Mobilizing for Ministry
Praying with Faith
Adoring God in Worship
Caring for Others (next week)
Telling others the Gospel
And, we see in Acts 2:42 that they celebrated communion together: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
That’s what we’re going to do right now we’re going to break bread…
Read from 1 Corinthians 11
Communion
