Why are you here this morning? What was it that made you get up fairly early on a day that most of you have off of work and come into Beartown Road Alliance Church to join us for worship? For some of you, it’s the fellowship. This is where your friends are and you enjoy getting together once a week and catching up on their lives. For others, it’s tradition. You grew up going to church, what else would you do on a Sunday morning? Maybe you’re here to keep the peace at home. Your spouse wants the family in church and so you come, to make sure your wife or husband is happy. There are some here who are hurting and they’ve come to find healing and peace from their struggles. When I was in youth ministry, and I’m sure it applies to some here, there’s always the group that is here because they have no choice. Someone has told you that you are going to be in church and so here you are. Usually this applies to the kids and teens.
Pastor Tony Evans, a wonderful speaker, says that when he was young, he had a drug problem. His mother drug him to church on Sunday morning, she drug him to church on Sunday night, she drug him to church on Wednesday evenings, anytime the doors were open, he was drug to church. I can relate to that. Maybe someone in here feels that way too.
Each of these reasons is used all across America by the millions of people who fill the pews of our churches each and every Sunday morning. Some of these are good reasons, some are a bit suspect, some are not very good reasons at all. But each of these excuses has one thing in common. They’re not the right reason for being here. We gather together for one reason alone and that is to worship God together. This is the most important hour of our week, Christ’s church coming together and joining in corporate worship of our God and Father, the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Now, fellowship will take place. Healing and growth will take place. Those who come looking for peace will find it. But those things are secondary, what we gain and what we take away from this time is not the important thing, the primary purpose is worship.
A.W. Tozer called worship: “The Missing Jewel of the Church” Certainly there are many who fill our pews who are not engaged in worship, who are missing out on the opportunity to draw near to God and to give Him the glory that is due His Name. Ask 10 people what worship means and you would probably get ten different answers. Ask a Baptist, a Methodist, a Pentecostal, a young person, an older person, a male, a female, and each one would probably give you a different take on what it means to worship. What I hope that you will understand when you leave here this morning is that your idea, your take on worship or what the person beside you thinks about worship is entirely irrelevant, the only viewpoint that matters is God’s and the way that He command us to worship.
By definition, according to its use in Scripture, worship means to ascribe the highest worth to something. So, when we gather to worship God, we are acknowledging His place in our lives and saying that He comes first before anything else. Unfortunately, I think that for many of us, worship has become something completely different. God and His pleasure has become less important than us and our pleasure. Often we are unable to set aside everything else that is going on in our lives and while we may be worshipping in body, with our lips, our hearts are not in it and we end up frustrated and wondering why God seems distant and why our faith is not like it used to be. We enter this place and into God’s presence with the wrong agenda and the wrong attitude and worship never really takes place.
Someone has been quoted as saying “We have become a people who worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship.” Does this describe us as a church body? What was foremost on your mind and heart this morning as you entered this place? Is worship really happening here?
God has been teaching me some things in this area over the last few weeks and He really used the trip to Argentina to drive some things home to me and to convict me of some of the attitudes that I have towards worship. So, I wanted to take a week off of our look at Matthew. We’ll pick it up again next week. This morning I want to address the idea of worship. And I’m going to do something that they teach you in your first preaching class never to do. They tell you never to try to explain a point by using a negative example, well, I’m not going to use A negative example, I’m going to look at four negative examples of worship, four things that worship is not, in order to give us a better understanding of what worship is. You can write to Nyack and complain about my preaching later.
Before we look at these four negative things, I want to look at something positive and set the tone with a look at Psalm 95. This is a beautiful charge to God’s people to worship.
Read Psalm 95:1-7
This is a picture of what the church is commanded and called by God to do. To worship, to bow down, to kneel before our Maker because of who He is and nothing more. He is our God and is the only one worthy of our worship and praise. But, like with many things, Satan has taken a pure and beautiful concept and perverted and twisted it and many Christians have bought into a false idea of worship.
The first false idea about worship that has found its way into the church is that:
1) Worship is for Me.
Many people enter into a church service, like this mornings, with this attitude towards worship. We feel that worship is for us, for our benefit, first and foremost. We sing if we like the songs, we feel moved if the pastor uses the right words and tells enough funny stories. We expect to be entertained and enlightened for an hour each week. Now, I think that pastors do need to make things interesting and the song service should certainly be well planned and thought through, but those are secondary aspects of the service. The primary aspect is worshipping together and that is more of a heart issue which we’ll look at later.
Often we leave a service and feel that we really didn’t get anything out of it. Have you ever said that to someone or heard someone else say that? I just didn’t get anything out of the singing or out of the message. When I hear those words, it tells me right away that the one who spoke them has fallen for this false idea of what worship is. I’ve been guilty of this at times. The one who comes in with the proper understanding of worship, the proper attitude of worship, understands that what makes it worship is what we bring. It’s not the songs, it’s not the message, its not the prayers, those are all designed to foster worship, but worship is what each individual brings to the service. It’s a heart laid bare before God saying, I am here to praise you and to honor you because there is nothing more important that I can do and it expects nothing in return. Worship begins with our attitudes.
I heard the story of a little boy who was out on the lawn playing baseball by himself while his parents entertained visitors on the patio. The little boy threw the ball up in the air and his parents heard him exclaim, “I’m the greatest hitter ever.” He swung and missed and because he was also the ump he yelled out, “Strike One.” He repeated the process with strike two and three, each time calling out that he was the greatest hitter ever, only to miss the ball on the way down. As the umpire he called out, strike three!” and then was quiet for a moment. His parents and the guests had been watching and waited to see what the boy would do. After a moment, he turned to his parents with a smile and said, “Wow! I just struck out the greatest hitter in the world, I must be the greatest pitcher of all time!” This kid had an attitude that was not going to let anything get him down!
What attitude do we bring into this place? Have you ever considered that the attitude with which we enter into worship effects the quality of worship that we offer God. If we come with the attitude that we are here to take instead of here to give, if we think that worship is about us, we have missed the point of worship.
I love the opening line in Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, he says. “It’s not about You.” He goes on to say that life is not about our pleasure or our happiness, life is about following God and bringing glory to his name. That’s worship! One of the largest areas of tension in churches today is the music that is played. Music has always been a large part of humans expressing their praise and worship to God. Over and over again in the Bible we’re commanded to worship through song and with music. We are told to use many different instruments and many different styles.
Psalm 150:1 Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute,
praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the Lord
We are to praise Him by any and every means possible. There is an unbelievable amount of variety when it comes to music and that’s been a large part of the problem. People have their own tastes and their own thoughts about what the music should sound like and the question becomes is this pleasing to me, instead of is this pleasing to God. It becomes an issue of attitude.
A few years ago I visited the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The songs were all new to me, the tunes were unfamiliar and the style was different than what I would say is my taste. My first instinct was to withdraw and not to participate but, God spoke very clearly to me that morning. I was in an assembly with brothers and sisters in Christ and the name of my God was being lifted up and God impressed it upon my heart that even if I couldn’t sing and didn’t know the words, I could still worship Him with all that I had. The music may have been unfamiliar, but God wasn’t and I had come to worship. The Psalm that we opened with says Come, let us bow down in worship. It doesn’t say bow down if you like the music, it doesn’t say bow down if the message is top notch, it says bow down because he is your maker. He is God.
We have to avoid the trap of using worship to fulfill our needs alone, making it about us.
So, worship is not about us, that’s the first negative example and the positive would be then that worship is about God. Understand this fact and it will change the attitude with which you worship.
The second wrong idea that people have about worship is that:
2) Worship depends on my circumstances.
This follows closely with the first false idea that worship is about us. When we make worship about us, we link it with our mood at the time. Our mood at the time is usually dependent upon what’s going on around us or what’s happening to us. Couples, have you ever noticed that often things are hectic right before you leave for church and you might snap at your spouse or at the kids and then when you come in here you are completely in the wrong frame of mind to worship? Our mood often dictates whether we engage in worship or sit and stew about what’s been done to us.
Pastors often fall into this trap. My father once told me that it was hard for him to worship when attendance was low. He felt like he had worked hard at a message that people needed to hear and when people didn’t show up, those circumstances affected his attitude of worship.
When I was in Argentina, I had the opportunity to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Mendoza. They were here about a year ago for our missions conference. They are pasturing a small church with the help of Jaqi and Toto, an Argentine couple. Their average attendance is 13-15. 8 of which are the two families. I had an opportunity to attend church with them. It was here that God really taught me some things about worship. As the service started, there was no one there other than the two pastors families. I was looking around thinking, man this stinks, maybe we should just skip the whole thing. The service began, we sang for a half an hour, lively music with clapping and dancing. The pastor’s wife had tears in her eyes as we sang and was lost in worship. My uncle presented a message on faith and everyone who came took something away because they were there to worship. They understood that they were there for God, not the other way around and when no one showed up, it did not affect their plans in the least. They came to worship and they did, despite the circumstances.
I’ve seen this concept played out in many small churches in Haiti. You sit in the service with the Haitians, no walls, no roof, most don’t even have a full set of clothes. The animals are making noises outside. You look at the mud housed and the filth and trash all around and as an American, it’s hard to worship in those conditions. I remember wondering how they could worship when they lived in these conditions and literally had nothing. But they did. Their worship was not based on their circumstances, it was based on their God and they worshipped together with everything that they had in them.
Psalm 95 urges us to come before Him with thanksgiving. Put aside everything else we have going on. Put aside the hurts and the wrongs, the fights and the distractions and approach God with thankfulness for what he has done for you. Worship is not based on circumstances, it’s a response to God and who He is and what He’s done and nothing that happens to us can change those things. Here is a true picture of worship.
Hab 3:17-19
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.
For Habakkuk, contentment came from knowing that God was in charge and knowing that God had his best interests in mind and knowing that these light and momentary trouble pale in comparison to the privilege of knowing and serving God. Worship is not tied to what happens to us or how we are feeling, it is a response to the power and love of God. When we enter together, don’t be distracted, don’t be discouraged, approach the throne of God and give Him the glory that is His and you will be filled and equipped to handle whatever comes as you draw closer to Him.
So worship is not about us, and it’s not dependant on our circumstances. The third wrong way to think about worship is that corporate worship is nice, but not necessary.
3) Corporate Worship is nice but not necessary
We see this belief reflected in the attendance patterns of many Christians today. Church is nice, but if anything else comes up, we put church at the end of our list ad hope that we can make it next week. It doesn’t take much to keep us away.
A young man was very much in love and he wrote this letter to his girlfriend. I would climb the highest mountain for you. I would swim the widest river for you. I would crawl across the burning sands of the desert for you. Then he put a PS to the letter. If it doesn’t rain tonight, I’ll walk over to see you.
Many of us take that attitude with church. We say we love to worship together and we love the Body and the fellowship, but if any other event comes along, we push church to the bottom of the list. It’s important to us, just not vital.
God ordained the church to carry out his ministry. Paul commands the people over and over to continue meeting together and worshipping together. Psalm 95 says three times Let US. Let us sing, let us come before him, let us bow. It is to be done together. Throughout Scripture we see that it was designed to be congregational. It was designed to be public and shared with others.
PS 68:26 Praise God in the great congregation; praise the LORD in the assembly of Israel.
Certainly we need to worship privately and individually but that can never replace the beauty of corporate worship together. Our Sunday mornings should be a celebration and a culmination of the private worship that has taken place during the week. This is the most important hour of our week. There is no exception. A proper understanding of worship will grasp this truth. As the most important time of our week, it needs to be prepared for. It does not come automatically for believers. We can’t just cruise in on autopilot and expect to have a meaningful encounter with God. We need to be intentional about preparing ourselves and preparing our hearts for worship together. When we go see a movie, most of us get there early and make sure we have what we need and we sit and wait eagerly for what’s about to happen, does that describe a Sunday morning for you?
I heard Chip Ingram speak about this and he asked how we would prepare if we had a meeting with the president. You wouldn’t wake up 15 minutes before hand and stumble in half asleep. No, you would get up early and you would think of what you wanted to ask and how you were going to interact. Your preparation would begin on Saturday night. You wouldn’t stay out late, you would make sure you were at your best. Should we prepare any less for an encounter with God that He promises when His people seek His face together? We need to prepare our hearts for this meeting together and we need to give it the proper priority in our lives and see the changes that begin to take place.
Finally, the last false idea about worship that I want to look at briefly is the thought that:
4) Worship happens once a week.
Corporate worship is vital, it’s commanded, it ushers us to the very throne of God, but it’s not enough. Worship is not a once a week thing, it’s a lifestyle.
RO 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.
Worship is the life that we live. We cannot worship here and let it have no impact on who we are out there. God is not pleased with that. He wants our lives, he wants our hearts. The songs we sing, the sermons we hear, those are all meaningless if they are not backed with a heart that genuinely loves and desires to follow God.
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: " `These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
God wants our lives and our obedience, not just our church attendance. When we worship through our lives, others will see and others will be drawn to us and to God through us. The tragedy is that the opposite is also true. If you worship in here and live for you out there, people will see that and be turned away from a God who, from what they witness in you, seems to not even be worth changing for. True worship is a matter of obedience. Leonard Sweet, in his book, “Aquachurch” writes: “Our pews are occupied by people who want to be moved, but who don’t want to move.” In other words, we want to be moved emotionally but we don’t want to move obediently! The world sees this and has called the church on it.
Argentine Girl.- I would go to your church, I think you are all real!
This girl was turned off and bitter because of the hypocrisy she had seen, but she was drawn to something genuine because she could see the difference that God can make. Worship is not a Sunday event, it’s a lifestyle. Is it evident in the way that you live? Are you drawing people to Christ by your actions or are you turning them away? The one who truly understands what worship is and whose life is a reflection of that desire to glorify and exalt God will shine like a light in the darkness and many will be drawn to that light.
Worship is so much more than what we have had time to cover this morning but I wanted to share some of these thoughts with you.
Worship is not about us
Worship does not depend on our circumstances
Corporate Worship is Necessary and needs to be a priority in our lives. And as important as that truth is, we also need to remember that Worship is not just a Sunday thing.
What do you believe worship is? Worship is a heart issue, it’s something that all of can fake, but God knows and He desires our hearts to worship, not just our lips. We worship because God is God, we worship because God is Good, we worship because there is no other God who is worthy of our praise and adoration.
I saw the most beautiful picture of worship a few years ago. We were at a youth rally and as we were singing, I looked over and noticed a teenager sitting across the aisle. He was a physically handicapped kid, in a wheelchair. His face would involuntarily spasm and jerk around. As we sang, tears began to flow down his face, he closed his eye as he sang. I was struck by the contrast. To the human eye, this was an ugly sight. His face was twisted, he had drool on his cheeks, his shriveled hands were raised and flailing around. Ugly. Yet, I knew in my heart that he was the picture of perfect beauty to God at that moment. He was lost in praising His God. He wasn’t worried about those around him. He wasn’t wondering why God had put him in the circumstances that he was in. He didn’t care that his voice sounded terrible or that he was drooling. He only wanted to share his heart with his father. Nothing else mattered.
When was the last time that you worshipped like that?
