The Next Step for Worship

Worship Through How You Live

What it means to Worship

True and proper worship is giving up everything to God. Worshiping God is like dying. Your old self dies as the new self takes over. When you are truly saved, the spirit of the Lord starts to transform you. Someone who is truly saved, worship God daily and constantly. Worshiping God transforms you, sanctifies you because the power of the holy spirit is at work through worship. We worship because of the holy spirit in us:

Philippians 3:3 ESV

3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—

This is a lifelong journey. We don’t just worship God once and be done, our entire being is now meant to worship God. Worshipping God means to give up everything to God, worshipping God means to be sanctified and this takes time.

When you make the decision to get fit, you don’t just expect instantaneous change. There are several years of you eating poorly and lacking physical disciplines that cannot be changed overnight. You make the commitment to be healthy and the new lifestyle starts. In the first couple of months, you can see a lot of progress. Sudden loss of weight, major increase in strength and endurance, and you’ll notice an overall energy change. After that, you then start to notice the fine tunings of shaping your body and trying to increase strength and it will take time.

Romans 12:1 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Sanctification can work very similarly.

You may notice when you first made that decision to commit and love Him, a lot changed within the first couple of months.

You may have noticed nothing really change. Either way, your relationship with Christ changes your life and it will be a life long journey.

Sanctification means “to by holy”

To be holy though does not mean you get to still live the way you live and sin. Sanctification means less sin and more obedience. Sanctification means less of your sinful desires, wants, and cravings, and more about Jesus’ desires and wants. You must give up yourself.

Worshipping God is connected to that process because in order to be like Jesus, which means to be more holy, you need to have less of you and more of Him. Sacrifice your old self and start to look more like Jesus. And the way to do that is to worship Him through your actions.

Romans 12:1–2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Here we have the word living sacrifice. It almost seems like a contradiction. True Worship is giving up yourself for God but it is also living in the sense while we are alive, we are doing exactly this. We are living a sacrificial life to worship and honor our God.

Where in this passage does it mention singing or music?

Hint: It doesn’t.

Worshipping God means to be a living sacrifice. Giving up everything to God. Worshiping God is like dying. Your old self dies as the new self takes over.

What are you willing to sacrifice?

This is worship, it does not relate just to music. Romans 12 is a chapter all about the life of true Christian and how we can worship God. Romans 12:9-21

Romans 12:9–21 ESV

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

- Are you willing to be embarrassed for God and sacrifice your status at school? - Are you willing to give up your time for Jesus? - Are you willing to be kind to someone when you are mad? - Are you willing to give up what you know is wrong, the sin, and obey Jesus and do what He wants you to do, and not what you want to do?

Write this question down, what are you willing to give up? What is something hard for you to give up?

Circle all the verbs of what it means to be a true Christian

Underline the adjectives that relate to what it means to be a True Christian

God wants all of you. Although the cost to follow Jesus is free in the sense you don’t have to have to pay for it financially, you must give up everything. Because later on in the verse it then mentions that his is our spiritual worship.

You hear this over and over on Wednesday nights where we are supposed to do these things, we are supposed to bless those who persecute us. Rejoice with those who rejoice, be happy for your brothers and sisters in christ for when. Doing these things, is worshipping God.

Many of these things may seem challenging to you, but that’s where you need to pray to God and ask for His strength. Ask Jesus to help you worship Him.

Worship is not an act that we do to prove how spiritual we are to everyone else – it is an honest, sincere appreciation of our love for God while developing a deeper spiritual awareness. It is a discerning attitude of the heart that expresses our passion and love for Christ beyond words by literally “living” for Him at all times.

Worship Through Words

What I love this idea of True worship is you see the things we need to do to worship God. But we need to also worship God through our words less of you and more of Jesus. More of God. Worshipping Him means praising His name. Declaring what He has done. Praising God, giving thanks to Him, shouting He is Good, can truly bring joy and peace because we are actually satisfying our purpose for why we are here. We are called to do this: 1 Peter 2:9

Psalm 29:1–2 ESV

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

1 Peter 2:9 ESV

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We are called to proclaim His name. The wonders of what He has done. That is why God created us. He created us so that we would proclaim the exellencies of Him. The one who saved us from Hell, eternal seperation from Christ, and has brought us to the light. We must worship through our words.

We see that Worship brings Joy

Psalm 89:15–16 ESV

15 Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face, 16 who exult in your name all the day and in your righteousness are exalted.

Blessed means to be granted special favor from the Lord regarding joy and peace.

Exult means to raise him in the highest. When God is your priority, shouting about what He has done brings you joy.

Psalm 100 ESV

A Psalm for giving thanks. 1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! 3 Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! 5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Worshipping God is living a life full of sacrifice but we all know the importance of using our words. Berkley talked about this in her message on prayer and why we pray and the importance of using our words to talk and communicate with God. The same goes for worship, worshipping God through the words you declare is also true worship. Praising God is also worshipping God. They go hand and hand.

Proclaim means to declare publicly and proudly

Praising God will lower yourself and raise up God. Make Him the priority and you less of a priority.

You worship Him when you proclaim Him while you pray

You worship Him when you proclaim Him to your friends

You worship Him when you proclaim Him during the music we sing

Worship God through your words because words matter as well.

Worship God through your actions and words both are intertwined in effectively and genuinely worshipping Jesus.

There is Power of Worshiping God through Music

This is my last point to close with some application as I want us to take this moment while we are all here to gether to worship God through music.

You will have moments where when you are worshipping through music, you will feel uncomfortable. You notice your voice my be off pitch and your insecure about how you sound. You may feel like raising your hands is weird and awkward.

What are some reasons why singing is uncomfortable?

Let’s be reminded of what Romans 12:1

Romans 12:1 ESV

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

It’s not about you, it’s about Jesus. Worshiping through music gives us a moment where we can let go of ourselves and proclaim how good God is. But before we get into that, we are commanded to sing!

We are commanded to sing!

Colossians 3:16 ESV

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Let’s look at the physical gestures that the book of Psalms encourages and commands us:

Psalm 33:1 ESV

1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.

Psalm 33:3 ESV

3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

Psalm 47:1 ESV

1 Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!

Psalm 134:2 ESV

2 Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!

The author of these psalms are commanding us to clap, shout, and lift up our hands! I’m not saying you need to yell at the top of your lungs the entire song nor am i saying if you don’t raise your hands are you a sinner.

Ephesians 1:4–6 ESV

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

But the whole idea of worshiping through God through music is to lift Him up and to lower ourselves. It can be a moment of reflection, repentance, thanksgiving, brokenness for your sin, joy, and all of the above. It is okay to feel emotion when you sing, it’s biblical. Just make sure you’re not worshipping for a feeling, you are worshiping God.

In my humble opinion, I have seen conservative Christians be far to timid in their worship because they might be afraid to even touch the side of other groups who are extreme like Pentecostals and charismatics. I understand and always value discernment, but we need to be careful of also holding back our emotions and posture when we see several verses stating the importance of singing loud for God and lifting up our hands. It’s okay to feel emotion:

Psalm 77:1–2 ESV

1 I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. 2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted.

There is a reason why God gave us music.

There is a reason why there is a whole book of Psalms that showcases songs of praise to God.

There is a reason why God can use music to speak to our hearts and minds when just words don’t.

There is a reason why music is beautiful and filled with expression and emotion. God knows that cause He created music for us to glorify Him with it.

Music can help us reflect on our brokenness and remind us of loving Jesus because He saved us from our sin.

Lets use it to praise and proclaim His name.

Why We Worship Through Music

Sing One Worship Song

Worshiping through Music Can Feel Weird

Worshiping through Music is Powerful

Sing Three Worship Songs, One Song is reflection