Worship That Pleases God

Introduction

Psalm 95:1–11 NKJV

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice: “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

Worship is the awed response of the believer to the saving acts and praiseworthy character of God.

Depending on the translation of the Bible that is used, the word worship occurs at least 187 times, not including mentions of giving God praise.

With so many mentions of worship from cover to cover in God’s Word we know that it must be pretty important. Yet statistics continually have shown that the number of people attending worship services overall has decreased year after year.

Misunderstanding Worship

Somewhere along the line we divided our lives outside of the church building from the worship services we hold inside on designated times.

While Jesus was talking to the Samaritan woman, this subject was brought up.

John 4:21–24 NKJV

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

People have always tried to separate out special places to worship God. A place where we can show our love and devotion to our God.

It started with altars to not only make sacrifices to the Lord, but also to commemorate the times and places that God and humanity made contact.

I’m not saying any of that is wrong, it was right that altars were built and the Temple was erected first by Solomon and again by Zerubbabel and Ezra after that. The last Temple was built by Herod the Great. None of them stand today, and part of the religious world mourns their loss.

In our modern day, we worship in church buildings such as this one and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But what if I told you that worship in this building alone should not constitute the totality of your worship to God.

Paul seemed to have quite a different approach to worship…

Romans 12:1–2 NKJV

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Continuous Worship

Our worship is NEVER supposed to end!

Think of that!

The people we read about in the Bible and say to ourselves, I wish I could be like those guys… they had an entirely different mentality when it came to how they worshipped God.

Have you ever noticed in the Bible, especially in the book of Acts how many times per day they went to the Temple or their synagogues?

Sometimes 3 times per day!

All week long!!!

Could you imagine?

They were continuously praising and worshipping God!

Yet we will invariably think, but I have to work, I have appointments, I have this or that…

Why would you do ANYTHING in a manner that was not an act of worship towards God?

ABSOLUTELY EVERY task or job can and should be viewed as an act of worship towards God.

This is why so many people fall into sin and depravity even within the confines of Christianity.

We struggle to maintain a right relationship with the Lord when we do not live a life of worship to Him.

Luci will give you every excuse in the world to keep you from worshipping outside of church services.

People are going to think you’re weird

You’re over-doing it

Nobody else is doing it like that

This is why your church is so small

Too much pressure

Expectations are too high

I can stand here and honestly tell you that i know I have fallen short in this area of my life. But the times I know that I had power from the Lord, the times when God used my life in mighty ways is when I worshipped Him as a manner of living instead of a church service.

God Pleasing Worship

We that are believers here this morning already know why God is worthy to be praised, why He is worthy of all of our adoration.

The problem comes when it doesn’t translate into the rest of our lives outside of church time.

How many testimonials have we heard of the failures of Christians? It was because of a failure to worship God with every moment of their lives.

Well what happens when our flesh rises up and we don’t feel like it anymore?

Hebrews 13:15–16 NKJV

Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Dedicating our everyday lives to God as an act of worship is vital.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 NKJV

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

Colossians 3:23–24 NKJV

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

If you will look at every seemingly mundane task as a way to worship God, you will transform your perspective on all of life.

Everything will become a ministry opportunity.

Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words. ~ St. Francis of Assisi

We have to get out of our heads the separation of God into fragments of our lives.

It is estimated that we spend 40% of our lives working a job, imagine if we worshipped our way through that 40% instead of allowing others that worship who knows what to keep us from such a wonderful connection point with the Lord?

A trip through the book of Psalms will help us quickly realize that a life full of praise and worship is an overcoming, blessed and powerful life.