This week, Scott brought a message all about worship.
What is worship?
A definition from a concordance (a resource like an index mixed with a Bible dictionary) says this:
“Giving God great respect, honour and devotion“
Worship can encompass a lot of activities. In the church, it’s mainly musical, but it’s also about how we live our lives:
1And so, dear brothers and sisters,a I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.b
(Romans 12:1-2)
So while worship is largely what we think of as singing in church, this verse means we can live our lives each day in a worshipful manner.
It’s important to remember that in addition to just singing, you can let your worship spill out into the day to day stuff and you can have a worship-driven life.
Worship is first and foremost an encounter with the living and holy God
1It was in the year King Uzziah dieda that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3They were calling out to each other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”
4Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke.
5Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”
(Isaiah 6:1-5)
Did you notice what they said as they worshiped?
Holy holy holy.
When Jews wanted to emphasise something, they used to repeat it several times. They didn’t really have the concept of bold text or italics or underlines back then, so if they wanted to hammer a key point home, they would repeat it.
So God is “holy, holy holy”.
And here’s another key point that Isaiah was hammering home: we are not holy holy holy!
Notice how Isaiah contrasts his own sinfulness, his “filthy lips” as he puts it, with how majestic, how big, how perfect God is.
It’s easy to slip into an attitude of “oh, we’re living in New Testament times, God’s just all about grace and love and mercy now, He was a lot more holy back then and all about the law”.
The truth is that God is still holy now and still cares about our obedience in New Testament times. You can read Acts 5, all about Ananias and Sapphira, they existed in New Testament times, lied to God and were punished by Him.
The other thing is God was still all about grace and love and mercy back then in Old Testament times just as He is now.
Abraham was counted righteous not because of his works, but because of his faith, and the same with King David.
In the Old Testament times, the people who were declared righteous were always declared righteous because of faith, not because of works, and you can read more about that in the letter to the Hebrews, which has a section called the Hall of Faith.
And we see God’s love and mercy poured out in this Isaiah chapter, straight after where we left off, in verse 6:
6Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.”
(Isaiah 6:6-7)
As much as God is our friend, He is also our sovereign Lord, and so we shouldn’t be approaching worship frivolously or lightheartedly. We have to come sincere and with respect.
Remember that the God of the Bible is big!
He isn’t just like a magic genie that grants wishes and answers prayers (although He does answer prayer)…He is the King of the Universe!
Do you come to worship casually or do you come to worship with the attitude as though you’re about to encounter a king?
A true experience of worship is often a direct result of preparation for worship
The phrase “you get out what you put in” is quite appropriate with worship.
Each Sunday morning before coming to church, if you want to worship God as He wants to be worshiped, which according to Jesus, is “in Spirit and Truth”, your heart should be prepared.
Spend time in prayer, focus on the truths of who God is and what He’s done!
In the Old Testament, much of the worship involved the Jews following physical step by step rituals, but as well the rituals themselves, they also had step by step instructions on how to prepare these rituals:
1The LORD said to Moses, 2“Give these instructions to the people of Israel: The offerings you present as special gifts are a pleasing aroma to me; they are my food. See to it that they are brought at the appointed times and offered according to my instructions.
(Numbers 28:1-2)
Those verses are found at the start of a passage listing a set of instructions the Israelites had to follow as part of bringing their offering to God.
Notice how God wanted stuff doing at certain times and according to specific instructions.
It’s quite interesting because at face value, it just comes across as just a list of religious rituals, but when you delve deeper into it, you notice that following these rituals took time, and the whole point of them was to give people the opportunity to prepare their hearts for worship.
Jesus calls us to worship in Spirit and in Truth, and when you focus on the truth of the Gospel, that Jesus died to pay for your sin and give you eternal life, you can’t help but feel grateful, and God delights in hearts that are thankful and grateful.
Genuine worship results in obedience to Jesus
In Matthew 17, Jesus had taken some of His followers up a mountain, and a bright light comes from Heaven and transforms Jesus from looking like a normal guy to where His face shone like the sun. And then, in verse 5, it says
5But even as he spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy. Listen to him.”
(Matthew 17:5)
In amongst witnessing the miracle of the Transfiguration, God wanted the disciples to focus and “Listen to Him” - that is so important.
Jesus speaks not only in the Gospels, but the whole of Scripture is God-breathed and the whole of Scripture taken in context explains who God is and what He has done and is God speaking.
When you grasp the Good news and listen to Jesus and take a hold of Him, the only adequate response is worship.
The natural progression for people who worship Jesus is that they start to let that worship flow out into day-to-day life in the form of obedience.
They start to act like Jesus in the way they treat others around them.
It means you can go to work and do it for the glory of God as an act of worship.
It means that you can love your spouse or your partner as an act of worship.
It means when you’re raising your children, whether it be treating them when they’ve been good or disciplining them if they’ve not been so good, you can consciously do it as an act of worship.
It means that on difficult days, you can choose to follow God even when the path is difficult, and you can do it as an act of worship.
Some practical things you can do as you worship too:
If you know the words of the song and you’re feeling confident, maybe close your eyes while you’re singing.
If you’re feeling even braver, maybe raise your arms in the air as an outward expression of your worship, as a sign that you surrender all that you are to God.
And then treasure your time of worship and let that flow out into the way you live your life this week!