Lives of Worship 2

Lives of Worship

It’s good to be in the “House of the Lord”! Amen?

Now that I said that, it somehow doesn’t seem right, you know? After all, far be it from us to believe that The Lord of the Universe needs us to build Him a structure to dwell in! But, mankind has been doing it for thousands of years. Just look at all the buildings as you drive around that have little crosses on top! Church buildings are not so much a dwelling place for God as it is a designated “Place of Meeting”, much the same as the Tabernacle was a “Tent of Meeting” for ancient Israel. A place to go to uniquely encounter God.

For many people, though, this is the only place that they go to worship. To them, this is the house of god. They have compartmentalized God and relegated Him to certain times and places in their lives. But, don’t all of us do something similar?

Tell me if this looks like you:

It’s the beginning of the year and you’re setting up your planning calendar for the new year. You enter all those things you plan to do or accomplish from January 1 to December 31. You place things like vacations, birthday celebrations, anniversaries, work around the home, work-related trips, oh yeah…work, meetings, date nights, and the like. At the beginning of each week, you make sure everything is laid out. You may even get into great detail here. Once all this is entered, you find there is little if any room for church-related activities, i.e., God. What we have gotten in the habit of doing is trying to fit our faith life into our daily lives, after the fact.

When you read scripture, or even delve into ancient history, we find that they did the opposite. Their daily lives were created around their faith life. Things went well when this was the case. This carried forward, more or less, into the modern world. But, somehow we have gotten away from that. Small wonder why things are going the way they are!

But, what if we changed that? What if we stopped compartmentalizing our worship of God and turned this train around and made our worship of the our Savior the focus of everything we do?

Scripture Reading

1 Chronicles 29:10-13 “10 David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. 11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12 Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. 13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.”

Psalm 19:14 “14 May these words from my mouth and this meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.”

I was so struck by the vision that this verse presented that I couldn’t help but wonder, what would the world be like if we lived our daily lives in light of who God is? If we we awestruck every time we saw a butterfly, or a waterfall, or the ocean, or a baby. If we were humbled by the goodness of God every time we saw a rainbow. If we fell on our knees and cried out to God in the presence of a cross. This world is God’s creation, we are God’s creation and salvation is in the saving act of Grace by Jesus on the cross. Everything should point to God and cause us to worship Him!

What is Worship?

False Worship: any form of worship that does not bring honor and glory to the One True God - the Only One worthy of our worship and praise - that worships other gods. It’s also important to note that this includes worship of any of His servants: Mary, the mother of Jesus, prophets, saints, angels. In addition, any form of worship that is not God-honoring. The Bible is specific about what worship is and isn’t. It’s not up to us to add to and subtract from the formula.

True Worship: true worship, on the other hand, is described perfectly in Paul’s letter to the Romans:

Romans 12:1-2 “1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Not what you expected? It doesn’t say anything about singing hymns or music in general, there’s no altar calls, no sermons, no houses of worship, no rituals, none of the things we commonly associate with worship.

Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. All of them can add to worship if done correctly. Paul is stating simply that they are not necessary. What is necessary are the things Paul lays out.

The first item is “offering our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God”. This involves surrendering our will to God - giving up our humanness - our hearts, minds, hands, thoughts, attitudes - and submitting to His will for our lives. God’s will is simple. Tod told us what it is last Sunday: A) Love God with all your heart, with all soul, and with all your mind; B) love others the same way you love yourself. Then, go tell everyone about Jesus! How each of us goes about doing that is the great mystery! What I do know is this: one of the Greek words translated to mean worship also means “to serve”. Our acts of service are a form of worship!

Why do we worship?

The motivation for our worship is also captured in Romans 12: “the mercies of God”. This is everything that God has given us that we do not deserve: eternal love, eternal grace, the Holy Spirit, everlasting peace, eternal joy, saving faith, comfort, strength, wisdom, hope, patience, kindness, honor, glory, righteousness, security, eternal life, forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, sanctification, freedom, intercession and, you get the idea! God has given us so much that we cannot help ourselves. We have to pour out our praise and thanksgiving! We have to worship!

How should we worship?

Paul calls us to give ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, holy and pleasing. But how do we do that? Paul tells us that we accomplish this by “the renewing of our minds”. We renew our minds daily by cleansing them of the world’s “wisdom” and replacing it with true wisdom that comes from God. You know why so many addicts fail to get clean, so many smokers fail to quit, people fail at dieting?

Matthew 12:43-45 “43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.””

There is only one way to renew our minds, and that is by the Word of God. It is the truth. To know the truth, to believe the truth, to hold convictions about the truth, and to love the truth will naturally result in true spiritual worship. It is conviction followed by affection, affection that is a response to truth, not to any external stimuli, including music.

True worship is God-centered worship.

People tend to get caught up in where they should worship, what music they should sing in worship, and how their worship looks to other people. Focusing on these things misses the point. Jesus tells us that true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). This means we worship from the heart and the way God has designed. Worship can include praying, reading God’s Word with an open heart, singing, participating in communion, and serving others. It is not limited to one act, but is done properly when the heart and attitude of the person are in the right place.

Where and When should we worship?

True worship can be public praise to God in a congregational setting, where we can proclaim through prayer and praise our adoration and thankfulness to Him for what He has done for us.

True worship is something that is felt inwardly and then expressed through our actions.

But, true worship is, at the same time, not just confined to what we do in a church setting or in open praise.

True worship is the acknowledgment of God and all His power and glory in everything we do. The highest form of praise and worship is obedience to Him and His Word. To do this, we must know God. Worship is to glorify and exalt God—to show our loyalty and admiration to our Father.

Final thoughts

We can’t continue to compartmentalize our faith life apart from our daily lives or put God in a box and take Him out only when we need Him. The truth is, we need Him all day, every day!

We have to reverse course and build our daily lives around a life of worship to our Lord and Savior, not the other way around.

Worship is not confined to an hour on Sunday morning or whenever we might think about it. It must become an integral part of who we are as Christ followers. Our lives should be lived in total worship!

The only way we can hope to make these things happen is by knowing God through His Word.

God loves you, my brothers and sisters, and so do I! Amen!