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PSALM 100:1-5A few years ago a woman entered a Haagen-Dazs store on the Kansas City Plaza for an ice-cream cone. After making her selection, she turned and found herself face to face with Paul Newman, who was in town filming a movie. Well, Newman’s blue eyes caused her knees to buckle - but still she somehow managed to pay for her ice cream cone and then she left the shop with her heart pounding. When she finally gained her composure, she realized she didn’t have her Ice cream cone. So she started back to the store only to met Paul Newman at the door who asked her. "Are you looking for your ice-cream cone?" She nodded, unable to speak. Then Newman responded "You put it in your purse with your change." When was the last time the presence of God quickened your pulse? During the next couple of weeks we are going to study “worship unto the Lord.” What worship is, what it isn’t and how we are to worship the Lord. The bible tells us. Heb 12:28-29 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." God is awesome, and those who trust in him are inheriting his kingdom. So we worship God, we worship him acceptably, with reverence, awe, and thanksgiving. For God is great, and worthy of all praise. So just what is worship? That is what we will be studying for the next few weeks. Warren W. Wiersbe says, “True biblical worship so satisfies our total personality that we don’t have to shop around for man-made substitutes.” William Temple gave a masterful definition of worship: “For worship is the submission of all our nature to God.” -- “It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose. Worship is therefore … the chief remedy for self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.” I like that definition, “worship is the surrender of our will to his purpose.” Rom 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 is to offer our lives to the Lord, not to conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the Holy Spirit and give every part of our lives to God. Lets consider Psalm 100 that speaks of thankfulness and honoring God. READ THE TEXT. PSALM 100:1-5 Worship is to pay homage to God, to surrender our will to his. We see models of worship in all the scriptures. Abraham takes his son Isaac to sacrifice him before the Lord, because God told him to. That was the ultimate test of worship. Of course, God stopped Abraham and provided a sacrifice so Abraham is called a man of faith because he passed this test. King David, worshiped God as he brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. As he takes six steps David offers an animal sacrifice. His worship was long and costly yet it was accepted by God as something beautiful. In the first centuries of the Christian faith, worship was considered the time that we met together as a body to pray, sing, teach, and to break bread in communion. So throughout history this is the heart of Christian worship. Today many in the church tend to think of worship as synonymous with only singing songs. But in reality worship is much more then just the song service. Worship is every part of your Christian life. You worship God with your whole heart and with your words. You worship God in song, with service, prayers, and giving. We worship God with our vocations, in our families, and with all our lives. The contemporary church service tends to divide itself into the worship service/ and the teaching or preaching of the word. But in reality we come into this place to worship the Lord so the entire time should be considered “worship service.” When we pray we are worshiping, when we give tithes and offerings we are worshiping. When we study God's word we are worshiping, when we have communion we are worshiping. From the invocation to the benediction this is all worship. Before we can understand worship we must know. 1. WHY WE WORSHIP GOD. The church of Jesus Christ exist for three basic reasons. First, we exist for God's pleasure. Secondly, we exist to edify and equip God's people. Thirdly, we exist to declare God's plan of salvation to the world. As important as on edifying the saints, and evangelizing the world are - we must never forget our top priority is to bring God pleasure. So we honor God, we worship God, h e deserves it; he desires it. Our Psalm speaks of why we worship. V3 because “the Lord is God.” He is the creator and everything is his. The bible says. COLOSSIANS 1:16 "... all things were created by him and for him". REVELATION 4:11 " 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". (kjv) We worship because all of creation is for God’s pleasure. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, made by God to bring him glory in how he created you. So you worship God, honor God in your body with you talents, and within how he created you. The worship service and music is one place that is often misunderstand. Apostle Paul said. EPH 5:19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, Over 250 times the bible speaks of singing praises unto the Lord. Why do we sing so much? What is the deal with songs of worship? Singing becomes an expression of worship that we offer to God because singing sets us aside and places our hearts and emotions before our agenda. Some of you have wonderful voices that are soft and always on key. Others of us sound – well not so pleasant, yet God receives those voices offered in praise as just as important. Ps 100:1 KJV Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. God is not as concerned about the quality of your praise as he is about the intentions of your heart. He is worthy of praise because we know that the Lord is God. JOH 4:23 ...True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. When a Samaritan woman was confused about where and how to worship Jesus gave her this great truth. When you feel far from God, just begin to worship Him in Spirit and Truth and God seeks you. Worship brings me into an awareness of God's presence. Just what is worship? The Greek word for worship is "proskenuo" (pros-koo-neh'-o) which means to kiss, like a dog licking his master's hand. To prostrate oneself in homage to reverence to, adore. It literally means, "to turn and kiss". Worship is to turn away from ourselves and turn toward the Lord, in intimacy, affection, and emotional expression of love. First: Why we worship. Because God is worthy, and we are created for his pleasure. Five important things about worship. a. 1st WORSHIP IS A VERB: Worship is much more then singing- here in the church it is the entire service. Worship is a verb- it is an act, it is something you do. Lets look at some models in scripture. When the prophet Isaiah is commissioned, he has a vision of heaven and there before him are the angelic beings worshiping. ISA 6:3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." Some people would say: “Why do you guys sing so many songs?” “Your just singing to yourselves.” But when Isaiah has a view of heaven he sees what the angels of heaven are doing. They are call out to each other - praises unto God! Building up themselves by exalting the Lord. There is power in corporate praise and worship. Power to get my feelings and emotions off of myself and geared toward God! Then I am doing what Jesus said in a very practical way. MAT 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Then in Revelation 4 we have another picture of heaven. TURN TO REVELATION 4:6-11..... John views into heaven, and like Isaiah he sees these Creatures and the elders around the throne of God. What are they doing? Perpetually worshiping God! Day and night the creatures are praising God, and as they do the elders answer back with their own worship unto the Lord. They are calling out praises, declaring the greatness of God, and offering back to him the most valuable thing they have, their crowns - as well as their praise. I don't understand all about what heaven will be like - but as we look at these snapshot into the throne room of God, we see one undeniable fact. All they want to do- is worship God. Could it be that God is so wonderful, so glorious that when we are in his presence that we are so consumed with his Love and Power that radiates from him, that our desire is to worship and praise him. Worship is a Verb. b. 2nd WORSHIP IS A HEART ATTITUDE. When you enter this place on Saturdays – Sundays or Wednesdays, do we come with the attitude of wanting to praise God? Do you come with the desire to worship the Lord to offer to him your sacrifice of praise? Or do we just come to receive? Or to fulfill some obligation? I have found that when I am down, or I’ve had a tough week. If I come into fellowship with a heart attitude of worship, if I come offering to God the praise of my lips, that God meets me every time. If you are going through a though time, if you have a heavy heart: Enter this place with a worshipful heart and you will soon be lifted out of the depths and into the heavenly. From our Psalm we find a “prescription for worship.” Enter the place of worship before the service begins. Enter in expecting to meet God. Whisper a prayer, sing to the Lord. When we pray, meditate on the prayers. Pray with those praying, agree in your heart, or even out loud, as long as your not disruptive. When you give your tithes or offerings, ask God to bless and accept your gift. During the sermon take an active roll, take notes, listen attentive, and say "Amen" when appropriate. If it is an open bible study like Wednesday evenings, participate, give your comments, asks questions. The difference between a church service and a worship service is in the heart attitude of those participating. We are blessed to have a wonderful worship team who use the talents that God has given them. They pray about what to sing, they work on how and when to sing each song. They are open to what the Lord is doing at any moment, but the difference between a good song service and a great worship service is in the heart attitude or the worshiper. Do I judge the music? Am I critical about Song selection? Is my heart a million miles away from here? Or do I come in expectation of good things? Worship is a verb, it is a heart attitude. c. 3rd. WORSHIP IS COSTLY. Like David as he offered a sacrifice every six steps, worship is costly. Like those elders before Gods throne who are giving away their most valuable possession. When we worship it costs us something. It cost you your pride as you humble yourself and sing, as you lift your hands in surrender to God. As you give it costs our money. There is an interesting event in 1 Chronicles 21. There is a plague on Israel because of their disobedience so King David (Who was Israel’s greatest king) desires to offer sacrifices to the Lord. TELL THE STORY David needs to buy the threshing floor from Aruanah. Aruanah tries to give David the floor, the oxen to sacrifice, and even yokes for fire. But David says something interesting. 1CH 21:24 ... "No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing." Worship is always costly, because you have to let go of your position of control and surrender to the Lord Too often the church is like: The little four and five year olds in a Sunday school class who when their teacher was speaking about the building of the temple. She explained to the children that when the temple was finished the “presence of the Lord” filled the temple. At that the students eyes lit up with joy. However the teacher soon learned why the children were so excited. They pictured a room full of presents from God. Too often the church is like those children, we are easily excited about our presents from God - then we are about being in the presence of God. Worship is a verb, it is a heart attitude, worship is costly. d. 4th WORSHIP IS EMOTIONAL. Notice the emotion in our Psalm. Shout for joy, worship with gladness, sing joyful songs. Emotion in worship can be a danger area, if we allow our emotion to become emotionalism. Worship is an emotional thing, just as we are emotional creatures. I believe this is one way we are created in Gods image. As we read the Psalms you see the emotion in every Psalm. Sometimes emotion in asking God to wipe out their enemies, other times like this Psalm, emotion in worship. Worship is emotional but there is a huge difference between and emotions. Emotionalism is trying to drum up something that is not really there and getting carried away by your emotions. There is a great danger in church that leans too much on emotions and gets carried away in outward expression of emotion. Its ok to be emotional in worship, but it is wrong to let your emotions draw away from what God is doing. Worship is a verb, it is a heart attitude, worship is costly, worship is emotional. e. 5th WORSHIP IS A NOUN. Not only is worship used in the scriptures as a verb, something you do. But worship it is also used as a noun, a place we go. Look at: Ps 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. We can “enter into worship”. How do we do that? The worship leader brings us to that place. Like a Bus driver who skillfully drives the bus to ensure that all the people get where they need to go safely. Or the high Priest who would take the offerings and prepare them for the Lord. So it is with those leading worship, they facilitate a journey through God’s gates, and into his courts with praise and thanksgiving. Who is this worship leader? Well here that is Greg's title. But remember we are all here to worship the Lord. When we come in expecting to meet with God - expecting to worship God. We are all worshipers. Then Greg, along with everyone involved in the worship service are taking an active roll in bringing us into worship. God uses people through whom the Holy Spirit helps the congregation learn the blessing of true spiritual worship. But we are all used to build one another up in worship. Eph 5:19 Speak to one another with psalms , hymns and spiritual songs… Speak to one another, the time of greeting can be a great time of ministry, if you come in so late that you can not speak to others, you are missing out on being used by God or allowing God to speak to you through others. If you come so late that you miss the song service, you are missing out on letting the Holy Spirit lead you into worship. Many Christians have spiritual malnutrition because they regard worship as an activity. Just the songs you put up at the beginning of the service. Worship is a lifestyle, honoring God with your life, and taking an active role in worship service- each day entering into worship. Worship is a place: It is a union between my spirit an Gods heart. When I learn to become a worshiper, when I learn to exalt God before my own needs and desires. That is when we worship Him who is worthy of all praise. It is my desire as your pastor to help you learn about this wonderful place called worship. But each individual worshipper must turn and kiss the Lord. They must humble their own hearts to enter into the presence of the Lord. How do we worship practically? The Scriptures tell of many different ways to worship, I want to share seven ways. 1. SINGING/ WITH JOY: It is a joyous thing to sing praise to the Lord. We should look forward to it recognizing that this is an act of worship and a sacrifice to God. PSA 100:2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. HEB 13:15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name. There are only two new testament contexts to our sacrifices, first is for our lives to be offered to God, the second is here, the offering of praise from our lips. Notice most of our songs speak of who God is, what he has don, and the confession of the name of Jesus Christ. 2. CAPPING OUR HANDS: It is scriptural and right to give a clap offering to God. When we applaud we are not applauding men or their talents but we are giving a Praise offering to the Lord. PSA 47:1 Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. 3. LIFTING HANDS & HEADS: Many people have asked me about lifting up your hands before the Lord. Lifting up hands is the universal sign of surrender. But it is also the universal sign of respect, and honor. When we lift our hands and heads before the Lord we are surrendering our will to his will, we are exalting him and humbling ourselves. PSA 134:2 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the LORD. PSA 123:1 I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven. 1TI 2:8 I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. 4. STANDING, BOWING DOWN, & KNEELING: Position in worship as in prayer is un-important. But as with any act of worship we bless God as we are obedient. Its ok to stand, if you feel like kneeling do it, if you bow down before the Lord if it is done in reverence and not trying to attract attention to yourself, then it is an awesome act of worship. PSA 26:12 My feet stand on level ground; in the great assembly I will praise the LORD. PSA 95:6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; 5. SPEAKING & SHOUTING PRAISE: On Wednesday evenings we are a small less formal group and we often wait between songs as we speak and declare praises to the Lord. Look at our models. REV 4:8 ....Four living creatures".... Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." PSA 145:21 My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD. Let every creature praise his holy name for ever and ever. PSA 66:1 Shout with joy to God, all the earth! 6. BEING QUIET AND STILL: Too often we feel like we need to be busy all the time but the scriptures speak of meditating upon the Lord. If there is a quiet time in the song service, if there is an instrumental, take that time to meditate on God, and let him speak to your heart. PSA 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God; ... PSA 48:9 Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love. 7. SPIRITUAL SONGS. There is a gift from Gods spirit, that helps us to lift up praises to God when we may not know how or feel like it. Apostle Paul says to: EPH 5:19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. 1 CO 14:15 ... I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. This is a supernatural praise and worship that releases our self and helps us express our love and praise to God by the Holy Spirit speaking through us. Like any gift of the spirit -it must be used in the proper context and with the proper restraints found in scripture. We believe in all the spiritual gifts but we also believe that God is a God of order, we do not allow our services to become something that turns people away from God. So in closing: Lets remember that scriptural worship will include all these forms. "Hands lifted up, lips filled with praise, and hearts full of thanksgiving. This is how we will bless the Lord"! Worship may not feel natural, but as we are obedient and humble ourselves by exalting the Lord, eventually our spirit will be refreshed and renewed as we worship according to His Word. 1 Peter 2:4-5 As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, you are being built into a spiritual house, you are a holy priesthood, your life is a sacrifice to God, consider the significance of worship: Worship. Is obedience to a divine command. Is brings nourishment to your spirit and spiritual growth. Encourages others in their spiritual development. Shows the world where my priorities are. Expresses my love for God. Is an avenue by which I can praise God. Shows thanksgiving to God for all He has done for me. Is a period of communion with God with the world is shut out entirely. So lets come together in a closing prayer and a song of praise unto our Lord. PRAY, BENEDICTION, SING. |
(C) High Sierra Fellowship 2008 |
