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We are in the middle of a. Towards the latter end, I should say of a series together called I believe. And you know, this morning, as we’re going through this series, there’s one thing I want to tell you that I believe as we’ve been learning about God together in the midst of all of this, is that I believe God has revealed himself to us in ways that we’ve studied together. Because God desires to do something in us and through us. We didn’t study a series called, I believe, the The Foundations of What it means to be a follower of Jesus for for no reason, just to get to the end of this and say, you know, that’s how how God is. And so we’re happy with that. And now I’m going to go on with my life. But we studied this series because we believe the reason that God has revealed himself to us as people is because God desires to transform us as people. Last week we studied the role of the Holy Spirit. God promised us that our joy would be made full through him, that the Holy Spirit and the fruits of the spirit were given to our lives, that we may experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness. Against such things there is no law. This fruit of the spirit rules and reigns within our hearts and lives to those who trusted in the Christ. And the reason that God has done this is because God desires to transform us as people.
How are we transformed? I believe the way that that happens is through worship. You know, I think as a church family, we really win when we understand what worship is all about. When people come here on Sunday mornings and we lift our voices and rededicate our lives to the Lord, but we don’t just end in this building. When we walk out Monday through Saturday, out on our own in this world, we continue to worship. When we worship, not only does the church win, but so does our our families and our community. I believe that God has created all of us for the purpose of worship. Bible tells us in first Corinthians 1031, whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. In Isaiah chapter six, it records for us the angels surrounding his throne, even at these moments, and is saying, glory on high, or glory to God in the Most High, the whole earth. It tells us, is full of his glory. The presence of this earth radiates the glory of God. That way the people of God may sit and stand in awe of who God is and worship. We read in the Bible in John chapter four, we’re going to look at a few familiar passages for us as a church family. If you’ve been here for any time. But in verse 23, we find that Jesus has gone to this woman at the well. He’s in Samaria, a place that Jews didn’t travel to because Samaritans were half Jewish people and and full Jewish people didn’t like the half Jewish people.
It was great racism going on here among their own people group. And Jesus enters into this town of Samaria, and he goes to a well, and he did something different than, than any Jew would think to do. And in going to Samaria, but not just going to Samaria, talking to a woman in this culture, it tells us that when Jesus goes to this, well, this woman is alone, and the reason she is alone is because she’s even an outcast among her own people. This lady is all alone, and Jesus meets her there in her time of need and desperation and lets her know what life is about. Life is all about a relationship with God and how that flows into our world, with relationships with other people. And we engage in that relationship with God through what we call worship, he says in verse 23, but an hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth. For such people the father seeks to be his worshipers. It’s as if God is saying to us that what God is after is people who would continue to praise and honor and glorify his name. The reason that you were built is to recognize the glory of God in your life, and the father is after those people. It tells us in verse 24 as we go on.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. Jesus identified for us. Listen, God desires for you to worship, but if you’re really interested in worship, it’s not about just picking a belief and going with it. It’s about discovering truth. God has revealed himself truthfully to us as people that we may worship him honestly. It tells us if you desire to engage in that relationship with God. It requires the Spirit of God to to live in your life, but not just the Spirit of God, the truth of God, to work simultaneously together in your praise to who God is. We worship in spirit and truth together. We’ve looked at the foundations of who God is as he’s revealed himself to us. God has created. God has spoken to us through His Word. God has created mankind in his image. He’s covenanted with man throughout the Old Testament, revealing to him and to us his desire for us to know Him and His his self, to be made known to us as people, to the point that Jesus, God becomes flesh and dwelt among us. God dies for us, is resurrected for us, and gives us the power of His Spirit to dwell within us as people. God didn’t do this just to do this. God taught us this about himself so that we may engage in true worship. What you believe is important, and you’ll never worship God more in your life than you correctly understand him to be.
And so the deeper you understand the truths of God, the deeper you engage in worship with him. Jesus tells us the father is seeking worshippers and we must worship in spirit and truth. So the question that we should ask, as we talk about the topic of worship this morning is really what is worship? If I were to ask you today, what is worship? How would you define it? I know some people would say it’s church on Sunday, or maybe more specifically, it’s singing the music on Sunday. But you know, worship is something that can take place anywhere, at any time in our lives when the Spirit of God doesn’t no longer dwell in the temple, but dwells within the people of God. You can engage in worship wherever you are. God calls us to do so. Worship takes place anywhere. It’s impossible for us as human beings, if you think about it, not to worship something. We’re geared as created beings to put our faith and trust and worship to something. The question is, what is it that you truly value? What is precious to you in this world? What are you taking your time, your resources, and your relationships in life to engage towards something? We were created to worship and the question is, what are you worshiping? Webster defines worship as the act of showing respect and love for a god. In English, the word worship comes from a 12th century term that means worth ship.
It’s as if you were to look at and examine everything in this world and identify one particular object or person or being and say, out of everything that I see, this is worth it. This is worth my attention. This is worth my family. This is worth my time. This is what I worship. The Bible defines worship in many different ways. Three primary ways that we discover in Scripture. One in Hebrew. Two in Greek. For you who once like to impress people with your Greek ability, write Hebrew is Sheker the idea of Moses or Abraham? When he came before God, he saw God in all of his glory. And it says that Abraham or he he bowed down in worship to God. It’s an attitude of reverence. It’s an attitude of worship. Abraham saw the power of God and the Magnitude and the glory of all that God was. And Abraham’s response to that was to simply bow down in submission to God in Greek. The Bible tells us it’s proskuneo. This is what Jesus said to the woman at the well. Listen, God is seeking worshippers, and the way that you worship is to to kiss toward. Not only do we see a word of submission to God, but we see a word of intimacy. We’re truly engaged in worship. We are submissive to the authority of God over our lives, but we become intimately engaged in acknowledging who he is over us.
We give a kiss toward him and Greek. The Bible also says it is to serve. It’s interesting. The Bible tells us to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. And the second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself when you’re engaged in worship. It doesn’t just happen internally in your life. When God begins to work on your heart and change you as you worship him, you begin to serve this world and love for Christ. Your worship is seen in service. I think this week I was developing a crummy attitude while at work and I started thinking about worshiping at work. Does that ever happen to you guys? Have you ever thought just for a moment, you know this is not going well? Today I just need to worship you. Think about God calling you into this world to serve as worship to him and the people that are important, in which God places in your life and your family and your friends and your coworkers. And as you go to work, you may not always enjoy your job, but you are worshiping the Lord as you engage in work because you’re providing for the family, the the people that God has called you to serve and care for, it becomes worship. I remember early on when Stacy and I got married, she told me I don’t do dishes.
And I thought, well, we’re eating off paper, you know? But then I began to realize, okay, she doesn’t want to do dishes, but this is my opportunity to worship God by serving my family. And so every day I worship God has called us to be intimate with him. God has called us to bow before him. God has called us to serve him. And through serving him we serve other people. But you know, when God calls us to worship, he calls every bit of you to worship. Jesus told us what is the greatest command. And when he delivered to us the greatest command about loving him with everything, he he included everything. This isn’t a list to make us think, okay, am I loving with my heart? Am I loving with my soul, my loving with my mind? Am I loving with my strength? What Jesus is clarifying for us that everything that makes you up as a person, whatever you think that is, surrender it to God and worship. That is worship. I appreciate that. How does the Bible define worship? This is another familiar passage to us Romans chapter 12. You guys could almost probably quote it if you’ve been here for any time. I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, right? We all know that verse, or have probably heard it at some point. If you back up just previous just one verse before that, in chapter 11 and verse 36, Paul begins to outline for us a definition in Scripture of what worship really is.
He says in verse 36, for from him this is talking about God, and through him and to him are all things, and to him be the glory forever. Amen. You know what? Worship begins with in our lives. It’s Is placing the weight of glory upon God. In fact, do you know that the word glory means weightiness, heaviness? The things that we worship in our lives are the things that we find most valuable and precious and dear to us. Worship starts for us as human beings, as we see in Romans chapter 11 and verse 36, when we take the opportunity to pause and gaze at the glory of God and realize the weightiness and glory that has been presented to us as people, and our response should be worship. He says in Romans chapter 11 and verse 36, listen, everything comes through him, and everything is from him, and he is before all these things. To him belongs the glory forever. He deserves the worship. It’s like an awakening call to us as people. What in the world am I thinking by engaging in these things, in this world that are so futile when all glory belongs to God? It is worship. You know, as I sat at work this week with my crummy attitude. I started becoming frustrated when I thought about worship in the Bible, because it tells me at one point that even the rocks will cry out in worship to God.
And I got real angry. I said, no way is a rock going to beat me. You read in the book of Revelation. It tells us at one particular point all of creation worships God. Even the animals give praise to him. And I started thinking about that and I thought, no way am I going to be beaten by a cat. I mean, that is like the most ungodly. No kidding. I know some of you guys have cats. I probably shouldn’t say that. I’m sorry. But the point is to recognize in our life, man, if I’m really going to worship God for everything that he is, it starts in just recognizing the weightiness and glory of God in my life. Paul responds, as we recognize that glory with chapter 12 and verse one, just just for you, Bible readers, just so you know, when you study the Bible, our chapter divisions and verses aren’t inspired. Okay, sometimes you really miss the thought of the previous verse that carries on into the to the next chapter. When we just start with chapter 12, we would have totally missed chapter 11 in talking about the glory of God. But he tells us in verse 12, therefore listen and recognizing the glory of God, when you see the word, therefore, you got to ask what is therefore. Therefore, it’s an easy question to remember.
And it says, I urge you, brethren, by the mercy of God, as we think about the glory of God and worshipping him, the only reason we are allowed to respond is because of his great mercy. It’s a form of his grace. We saw together in the Garden of Eden how Adam and Eve sinned, and God would have been completely just in the middle of that sin, to wipe every human being off the face of the earth. God is that glorious and that holy, but he chose instead to still give us hope through the promise of Christ. All the Old Testament into the New Testament is the promise and the fulfillment of a future Messiah who would come and die for our sins. And it’s all because of the mercy of God. And he says to us, therefore, brethren, because of God’s mercy. Here he says to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God. Look what he says, which is your spiritual service of worship. The only appropriate response and recognizing in your life the glory of God, is just to surrender to everything he is and just give him control of all that you are. And notice he’s. He calls us something specific here. Living sacrifices. So when you’re going to the temple in the Old Testament and you walked in with an animal, you didn’t walk out with that animal. That animal was done for the day. Jesus tells us something different about ourselves.
We are living sacrifices. Meaning, just because I surrender to worship to God on Sunday doesn’t mean I surrender and worship God on Monday. God has called us to make ourselves a living sacrifice every day. You’ll never truly sacrifice for God without recognizing his glory in life. But therefore, Paul tells us the correct response to that is just to worship. He says in verse two, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. God says something interesting about our lives when we engage in true worship. We change. He tells us, listen, don’t be conformed. Put away all the idols, all the things that you thought was important in this world. Just lay them aside and see this world through Jesus’s eyes. And as you are engaged in worshiping God, it tells us that God begins to transform our lives. So God has called us to make a difference in our communities, our city, our families. But I can tell you this morning, as we’ve been studying this series together, we’re not going to make a bit of difference in the lives of other people, let alone ourselves, if we don’t engage in worship. And I told you, as we looked at these, this series together, that the latter half of the series was going to deal more with application in our lives, as we’ve seen so much heavy doctrine and to to those who who don’t necessarily love doctrine as, as much as just the application part.
Thanks for sticking with me. But now’s the time to make the application, because here’s the scary part of going through a series like this is that we’ll get to the end of this series, and it makes no difference in our lives. These truths that we have shared together as we’ve studied, I believe, are the pillars of what Christianity is. It is the very reason that that this, the first church or the early church continued to lay down their lives as martyrs for the sake of Christ, because this is what they believed. And when I consider ourselves, thousands of years later, still loving and serving Jesus, if we’re serious about reaching this community in our families for Christ, it starts with us engaging ourselves in worship. And as we are. God changes our hearts and our lives, and as he changes our lives, he begins to affect the lives of those around us. In first Corinthians 14, Paul was describing the perfect church, serving in all their gifts. And he began to say to the people, listen, when someone walks into this church, this is what they’re going to say in verse 14 and 25, truly, God is among you. That’s our desire. People who just love Jesus so much and abandoning everything else in this world that when they come in and they see us, they say, this place is different for the sake of Christ, You are worshippers of the one true God.
What often takes place instead of worship is idolatry. The enemy of worship is idolatry. Romans chapter 1 or 4. In verse 11 it says, worthy are you, O Lord, and our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created. What we really worship is indicated by what we value. A couple of stories for you. There was a gentleman who went to a foreign country, and it was a particular religious holiday that was taking place. And and the people in this country were painting their faces and celebrating to this God and worship. And he came home to his family and said, you know, those those people are just pagan. They’re evil. They worship false gods. And then they had one of the family members of which they were he was staying with Come and visit America, country founded on God. And they went to church on Sunday. And then after that evening they went to a football game and the lady went home and she said, that place is evil. I went to church on Sunday and they were kind of happy. But then afterwards we went to this game and they painted their faces and they celebrated to these people in this field like they were worshiping a god. Another individual went to another particular country, and he was visiting a family who worshiped a false god.
And he walks into their living room and he sees as he enters into the room, this incense burning in the corner next to the incense, there was an idol that had been created there. And every part of the living room, all of its furniture, all of its accessories were facing this idol. And he thought, how silly. These people face all of their living room furniture towards this idol and prays to it. And then he went home and he walked into his living room and he noticed all of the furniture and everything within that living room was facing one direction, all towards the television screen. And he realized, though we’re in different countries, we’re really not that different. We all have our idols. Idolatry takes the attention of worship. Sometimes we mask the idea of idolatry under the word addictions. Addictions are just another type of idolatry. You think about the things that we’re addicted to, and I’m not just talking about alcohol or drugs. Maybe it could be relationships with the opposite sex. Some cases, maybe it could be sex. Maybe it’s video games. Maybe it’s shopping, maybe it’s Facebook. I should have hit everyone right now. Maybe it’s TV. All of us have addictions toward something in which God deserves to be in that place. The question is, what takes your attention? What are your habits? Where does your money go? How do you give your time? Do you sacrifice relationships for those addictions in our addictions? Do you notice that we not only sacrifice our relationships, but we choose friendships involved in that particular area? We forsake things that are important to us for this idol we worship.
We take time from our job, our family, our friends, money, the little time that we have in worship to this. You know what the solution is to addictions? The solution to idolatry. It’s not to stop that addiction or idolatry, because if we stop it, all that we’re going to do is fill it with something else that we get addicted to in this world. The solution is worship. Take your addictions. Take the things that distract you from what is important and giving glory to God and just worship God instead. We as people can get so crazy that the Bible tells us that even when we come for religious gatherings, we can make the religion the idea of worship rather than God. That’s why I wear jeans on Sunday. Verse 23 it says such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom. All your religious worship, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence, even in worship, even in producing religious monotony in our lives. It tells us in this verse of Scripture, no, no matter how religious you try to make yourself, if you’re not fulfilling yourself with Jesus, this is just restraining sensual indulgence.
You still have that urge and craving to to to be an idol or to worship an idol or, or to to have an addiction or to be the addiction yourself and worship to you. It’s just about Jesus. Worship is only ever about Jesus. The Bible tells us if we are to worship, we must recognize his glory. If you are built to worship as people, the warning to us is to be careful who or what you worship. We are built to worship and we will worship something, but be careful what you worship. The Bible tells us that the opposite of worship is idolatry. Romans chapter one. If you were to look at that passage of Scripture in verse 21, Paul really begins to explain to us a people group that engaged in idolatry in the slippery slope of life that pulled them from worshiping the one true God and to worshiping other things. In verse 21 it says, they exchanged. They began to exchange truth for a lie, and they begin to not recognize the glory of God in their lives. And and so in verse 25 it begins to say this. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who was blessed forever. God created everything that we experience in this world for us to be pointed to him. We as people can sell ourselves short by looking at the object itself and begin to worship.
He says in verse 26, for this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. Paul begins to to regard the sexuality of the human being and how it begins to be degraded when we don’t truly engage the worship of God. And it makes total sense that once we leave God, this would happen because God has created us in his image, out of everything that God created, he called good. But when he created mankind, he said that was very good. And so us as people and recognizing creation rather than the creator or worship ourselves. And the slippery slope begins. Paul begins to go on. He says in verse 28, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper. Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And we stop there and say, how did all that happen? We saw in verse 25, it’s because they took the truth of God and ignored it. And rather than recognize the glory of God, God gave them over to praise whatever it is that they wanted. You know, the health of society, the health of a community, the health of a family is seen in its worship.
The further we get away from God, the worse mankind comes. In first John chapter five and verse 21, when John wrote the book of John, he writes all about God’s love and our pursuit of God. And he gets to the very last verse in the entire book and he says something weird. It just doesn’t seem like it fits the passage of Scripture. And it says, keep yourself from idols. It’s as if he’s saying to us as people, listen, this is what God wants you to do. But there’s one thing that’s going to destroy your relationship with him. It’s anything else in this world you become addicted to Anything else in this world that you begin to praise and value beyond what God deserves in your life, that idolatry will ruin you and so worship. So let me conclude with just a final point. Today we’re going to look at a few verses of Scripture. Why does God want our worship? And I’ve heard a lot of people come to this verse or this question and just say, God is just a needy God. God wants us to glorify him. It’s like he’s running around saying, praise me, praise me, praise me when everybody just bow to him because he needs some sort of affirmation for us. And in case we need this clarity within our minds, it tells us in acts that God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything.
Listen, if you don’t praise him, it’s okay. He can make another you. He’s God. He doesn’t need it. He. He is more glorious. With or without your praise. It doesn’t matter. Tells us. Um, I read A.W. Tozer. He said A man can no more diminish the glory of the sun by writing darkness on the walls of his room, than we can diminish the glory of God by refusing to praise him. Regardless of what you choose today, God is still going to be as glorious as he is yesterday and tomorrow. God desires for you to worship him because you were created to stand in all of that glory. Heaven is not going to be boring because you’re going to stand in the presence of a glorious God for all of eternity, in which you were created. To recognize and stand in awe of the whole earth is full of his glory for the purpose of us as people, just to recognize this glory within our lives. And and Jude chapter or excuse me, there’s only one chapter in Jude in verse 24 says, Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy, it says, Glory to him forever and ever. Amen. In that last verse, God’s desire is for you to recognize his glory in this world. And look what happens when we recognize his glory. It says we stand blameless with great joy.
We stand blameless because rather than walking in sin and idolatry, we choose to follow after Christ. We look at the weight of his glory, and we have great joy because God knows the reason he created us was to stand in all of his glory and to recognize his position in our lives. And so when we put him on that throne of our world, we get joy in him. God is our joy. Why does God want us to worship so that we recognize his glory and receive his joy? You know, we aren’t the type of people that will go through this world and live perfect lives. But what we are is people. Sometimes we find ourselves as wounded and weary soldiers who need rest and rehabilitation. We need strengthened sometimes, and God knows the best place for us to be, and desiring to be strengthened and desiring to be rehabilitated and restored in our lives is in his presence. That’s why David wrote so clearly in the Psalms. He said in 46 verse one, God is our refuge and strength. He’s saying to us, to those who are rejuvenated and joyous, you can understand what I’m saying and celebrate in this that God is your refuge and strength. And to you who who are hurting and longing and need something to fulfill your life, God is your refuge and strength. You get joy in worshiping the one who created you, the one who gave you purpose and meaning.
We worship for his glory and our joy, but we worship because God wants our heart. The whole purpose of life, the meaning of life. I should sit Indian style and share this part. Um. Is your it’s about your relationship with God. John 17 three says, this is eternal life, that you may know him. Let me say it another way. Eternity is all about knowing him. God came to this world and died for your sins. God spoke into all creation. God gave you his word to reveal himself for you because God desires for you to know him. And God desires to know you. And we’ve said it before, but Jesus is the great hound of heaven after your life, because he knows the purpose for which he created you. And it says in Second Thessalonians chapter three, May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. We come to the end of a series like this, and our purpose is to worship. We didn’t study, I believe, to make ourselves feel really super smart about God. We studied to worship. By the way. We don’t like arrogant Christianity anyway, right? We learn these things not to just. I know every book of the Bible quote me a verse. I’ll tell you where it’s at. We learn this stuff for worship. God’s not only called you to make an impact and worship in your lives, but to be so transformed.
You make an impact in this world and that you you serve God because of worship. Whatever you believe will satisfy your life. That’s what you worship. Bible tells us in Luke chapter 24, verse 52. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Do you know why they had joy? It’s because they worshiped. The question we ask this morning is not about Sunday. But when was the last time you were driving down the road on your way to work. And you just turned off the radio, and you and you stopped in the middle of that moment, and you just worshiped. When was the last time someone asked you to do something difficult, like wash the dishes and and rather than complain, you just stopped and you worshiped and you said, God, I am beating these rocks today. God, you created me for this, and I’m finding joy in this. God and I am going to worship. If you’re not really worshiping, the question is, do you recognize the weightiness, the glory of God’s presence that’s being placed upon all of us and seeing him truthfully in this world? Do you know God truthfully? Has the Spirit of God connected in your life? So that way you can engage in worship? You’ll never worship God more deeply than you understand God more truthfully. Are you giving yourself in response to that worship and recognizing his glory? As Roman says, are you becoming a living sacrifice? And in so doing, watch the hand of God transform your world.
Is your worship about bowing down to God rather than idols? Is your time of worship intimate? Do you feel not only are you bowing down to this authoritative figure, who is God reigning above your head, but, but, but you’re taking the time to become intimate and personal with your deepest needs of him and your world. And then what are you doing with it? Are you going out into that world and living for him by the evidence of your life? Can people just look at you and say, you know what, I know one thing that they’ve given their all and that is God. They are a worshiper. Have everybody bow their heads and close their eyes for just a moment. We as people win when we worship. I want you to just take a moment and think about your week that you just had. Let me just ask, did you worship when you talk about worship is Sunday, all you think about is music all you think about? Or is it every day taking those moments? Take an opportunity in our lives to recognize where we may be failing in our worship. And I want you just to talk to God about that. Maybe even recommit your life and just asking God to help you to worship him. As your heads are bowed and eyes are closed, Mark, I’m going to have you come up and lead us in a word of prayer for everyone.