Student Worship Night

Intro Passage

I hope you came ready to worship tonight. And I want to be clear, I don’t say that because I want this to be a fun night, or a powerful night, or because the band prepared for this, or so I get to hear and watch you worship. All of those things are amazing and true.

But no, I hope you came ready to worship tonight because our GOD is WORTHY of your worship! He deserves our absolute best and most focused attention, heart, and effort in our worship! Tonight, like every time we gather, is an opportunity for us to draw near to the one living God together and WORSHIP Him. To praise him and thank him and declare His goodness, power and reality together through song and prayer!

So, as we begin I want to remind us that we are here with a God who deserves every ounce of your being to praise and worship him tonight!

We are going to read Psalm 47 and worship God with all we’ve got tonight. Psalm 47 was likely written in response to something that happened while Hezekiah was king of Judah. The powerful Assyrian army was about to attack and wipe out the Israelites. They sent a letter to Jerusalem mocking King Hezekiah and telling the people they had no hope of salvation. King Hezekiah took that letter, went to the temple and prayed to God for salvation. That night, the angel of the Lord wen into the Assyrian camp and killed 185, 000 of the troops that would have invaded them. The assyrians retreated back to their home land and the king of Assyria was killed by his own sons.

Psalm 47 declares that our God is the one true king who is sovereign- he is ruler over everything! Jesus is King, he is the king of kings and lord of lords and yet he calls you and me his friends. He died so that you and I could be saved. He came as King and conquered our greatest enemy- the sin that had us all enslaved and heading towards our death. So, let us read this psalm of celebration and be reminded that we have every reason to jump and dance and sing the praises of our King tonight!

Psalm 47 (CSB)

…Clap your hands, all you peoples;

shout to God with a jubilant cry.

For the Lord, the Most High, is awe-inspiring,

a great King over the whole earth.

He subdues peoples under us

and nations under our feet.

He chooses for us our inheritance—

the pride of Jacob, whom he loves.

Selah

God ascends among shouts of joy,

the Lord, with the sound of a trumpet.

Sing praise to God, sing praise;

sing praise to our King, sing praise!

Sing a song of wisdom,

for God is King of the whole earth.

God reigns over the nations;

God is seated on his holy throne.

The nobles of the peoples have assembled

with the people of the God of Abraham.

For the leaders of the earth belong to God;

he is greatly exalted.

PRAYER:

God you are GOD! You are King of Kings and Lord of lords, we WILL Praise you. We WILL worship you, because only you are worthy of our worship! You are GOD! Let us hold nothing back from you tonight! Forgive us for our sins and let us come before you in the righteousness of Jesus tonight and praise you together starting right now! Amen.

Second Passage

The apostle John, one of Jesus’ close followers, endured persecution from the Jewish and Roman leaders and was eventually exiled to an island where he famously has a vision where God gives him a Revelation of the Heavens and things that God was going to do. He wrote those things he saw down in the book of Revelation.

In Revelation chapter 5 John tells us of how he saw spiritual beings, angels, and people of God who had died in history all around the throne of God. And there is this scroll in the hand of the one seated on the throne. Everyone is looking at this scroll and wants it to be opened, but no one is worthy, or allowed to open this scroll.

The language for the scroll is the same in ancient greek for what would’ve been a deed or a will, basically a legal document describing the inheritance and ownership of something. And only the rightful heir or owner is able to open that document. Well, the heavenly gathering is waiting for someone who is the rightful heir and owner to open this scroll and John sees the resurrected Jesus, the lamb who was slain go to the scroll and take it and open it!

This scroll symbolized God’s plans for the redeeming, rescuing this world. Later this scroll seems to describe the final judgement and punishment of sin and the start of new creation free from sin and brokenness forever!

As we just studied sin in our last series, this moment should strike us as very significant. Jesus, who paid for our sin on the cross and offers us victory and life through his death and resurrection was the one worthy to open the scroll and give us this display of the hope we have in the day to come where sin will be no more, and we will have perfect, holy, eternal life with God forever in the new creation!

This is the moment we get a powerful passage of scripture where all those gathered in the heavenly realm worship Jesus as the risen King, the lamb who was slain and who is worthy of all worship!

Read with me in Revelation 5:

Revelation 5:8–14 CSB

When he took the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slaughtered, and you purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign on the earth. Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and also of the living creatures and of the elders. Their number was countless thousands, plus thousands of thousands. They said with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing! I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them say, Blessing and honor and glory and power be to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever! The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

PRAYER:

Jesus thank you that YOU are WORTHY! You hold the keys to eternal life and you came and died in our place as the perfect lamb that was slain. You rose from the dead as the conquering lion of Judah, and you now sit on your throne as King! Jesus we declare with the heavens: Blessing and honor and glory and power be to you forever and ever, AMEN!

Final Passage

We have every reason to worship God, he is our savior, he is our creator, he is our Father, he is our protector and redeemer and deliverer. God is worthy of our worship. But daily, it is easy to forget who God is. It is easy to get caught up in our struggles, and frustrations and the ways people hurt us. We get distracted by our own sin and the sins of those around us. When we go through difficult times and painful times, it can either lead us closer to God or away from God.

King David is one of the best examples of this. David was chased into the wilderness by king Saul, he hid in caves and slept out in fields hiding from the army that was chasing him. David was betrayed by his own son and chased out of his kingdom again. David fell to sin and got caught in the midst of his wickedness. Yet it is because of David’s response in the midst of all of those circumstances that we still view him as faithful and a man after God’s own heart. David always turned back to God in repentance, trust and worship. David wrote many of the psalms that were basically songs declaring truth about who God is! David trusted God was good and just and powerful no matter what David’s circumstances looked like.

Do we trust God in the middle of our circumstances? No matter how scary, ugly, broken, or dark our situation may be- do we have CONFIDENCE in our God?

In Psalm 16 David declares the Lord is his portion and blessing. He says his heart is glad and his whole being rejoices because of who God is!

Let’s read this psalm together and worship God for the fact that He is worthy of our complete and total confidence. Knowing that if God is for us, who can stop us? If our God is with us, what can ever stand against us.

The same God who formed all of creation and spoke it into existence, the same God who delivered the israelites out of egypt, the same God who raised Jesus from the dead- is with us in this very room and is living in us through His Holy Spirit! and that same God loves us beyond all comprehension. To the point that he died for us on the cross!

We can trust our God no matter what we are going through or facing. He will meet every need, he will heal every wound, he will answer every call, he will defend every attack, he will make all things right and new! Have confidence in God today!

Listen to David in Psalm 16

Psalm 16 CSB

A Miktam of David. Protect me, God, for I take refuge in you. I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides you.” As for the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones. All my delight is in them. The sorrows of those who take another god for themselves will multiply; I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, and I will not speak their names with my lips. Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing; you hold my future. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I will bless the Lord who counsels me— even at night when my thoughts trouble me. I always let the Lord guide me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices; my body also rests securely. For you will not abandon me to Sheol; you will not allow your faithful one to see decay. You reveal the path of life to me; in your presence is abundant joy; at your right hand are eternal pleasures.

PRAYER:

God you are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. You are perfect and holy and powerful. You never fail us, you never forsake us. You love us and we are so thankful we are able to experience a personal relationship with you through Jesus. Remind us that whatever we face in this life- you are enough, you are bigger than it all, and we can trust you and declare in the midst of our worst trials that the God of the universe is with us and we will not be shaken! Remind us of the joy and life we have in you! AMEN.