Worship

Introduction

Welcome back to Midweek everyone. Tonight is a special night because we are starting a new series and that series will be on worship.

"Worship" is one of those words that churches use all the time. It's easy for us to nod our heads, thinking we know what it means, but let's take a minute and share. What is worship to you?

There are so many different thoughts about worship and how you do it. Some people love to worship by singing songs to God. Others prefer writing poetry and journaling. As you've all just heard, we can interpret worship in different ways.

In fact, that can lead us to wonder...

Is there a "best" way to worship?

Can I worship when I don't feel like it?

Why is worship so hard to do sometimes?

If we're honest, we don't always like worshiping God. And even when we want to, we face so many distractions. Between that and the constant buzz of life, it can be tough to create space in our lives and set aside time to focus on God.

So tonight, whether worship feels awkward for you or you already have your own habits of worship, we're going to explore this sense of wonder that God inspires within us. As we do, we'll see that worship isn't about singing the "right" songs or feeling the "right" emotions. It's about what happens when we give in to wonder and awe.

The Big Idea tonight is: Worship isn't about music, it is a life posture.

1: Worship responds to who God is and what He’s done

We’re starting off strong with our first point because we’ve just answered one of the biggest questions. “Why do we worship?”

We worship because its our way of responding to who God is and what he’s done.

When we look at examples in scripture of times people worshipped God we can find a lot of times when they were worshipping in response to something.

Genesis 8:18–20 “So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.”

Exodus 15:1–3 “Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.”

Noah builds an altar after God saves him from the flood

Moses and Israel sing to God after he delivers them through the Red Sea

These are both forms of worship that they did in a way of responding to who God is and what he’s done for them.

So the next question is how do you react when God works something out for you? Do you even notice the times God pulls you through something?

How many times has God blessed you or taken care of you and then he’s going “look at the opportunity I’ve given you to worship” and instead we move on. What would it look like for you to take the time in your busy schedule to stop and truly appreciate the things God’s done in your life and find time to worship him for those things.

2. Worship is surrender, not just expression

This is where we get into the idea that worship is not just singing a song. Worship can be physically acted out. Worship is anything you do for the Glory of God.

Genesis 22:1–5 “After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.””

What was the purpose of us reading this? We read this because Abraham was being tested by God. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his own son. And so Abraham went to do that but in verse 5 he calls it worship.

Now if Abraham is calling this worship and all he is doing is following what God has asked him to do then what does that mean for us? That means anytime we do what God has asked us to do we are worshipping him through that.

We worship when we surrender to God. No matter what that looks like, and for each of us thats going to look different.

If you’re a parent you worship God by taking care of your kids and teaching them how to live a Godly life.

If you’re a teenager you worship God by being a light to your friends and teammates. You worship God with every interaction you have with your parents and siblings.

I’m worshipping God right now, God placed a calling on my life to teach his people about his word and I’m doing that now.

Worship is not just singing a song, its not just an outward expression with your voice or your hands, it is a daily lifestyle.

3. Worship is remembering God’s faithfulness

As we read earlier in Genesis we could see people in scripture worshipping God after he had done something for them. But the key here is to understand that they worshipped him not just as a quick way to say thank you. They worshipped him so that they could take the time to remember Gods Faithfulness.

What is the purpose of this? What is the purpose of remembering what Gods done for you?

Remembering what Gods faithfulness in your life does 3 things:

Build your faith in him

Strengthens your trust in him

It keeps your relationship with him Personal

Now all 3 of these things are important but I want to focus on the last one for a second because this is such an important aspect of your faith. And thats keeping your relationship with God personal.

When you’re young in your faith it can sometimes feel like your relationship with God is based around someone else’s relationship with God. Whether that be one of your youth leaders, or one of your parents or a sibling. But its important to find ways that we can keep it personal because at the end of the day your relationship with God is only between you and him.

As you grow older and you get further along in your walk with Christ you might get to a spot where you start to compare your walk to other peoples walk. And you start to get frustrated about the blessings they’ve received or the ways that God has provided for other people, and slowly whats happening? You’re bringing others into YOUR relationship with God.

But heres the thing, constantly putting yourself into a position to remember God’s faithfulness will keep that from happening.

What does that look like? It could look like doing it by yourself, just sitting and thinking. It could look like bringing it up to a friend or family member, “Hey remember when _______?”. And then you say “you know I just think its so cool how God works like that.” Thats it!

Remembering God’s faithfulness in your life keeps your relationship with him personal. Remembering God’s faithfulness in your life is another form of WORSHIP.

Conclusion

Romans 12:1 “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.”

Romans chapter 12 puts it perfectly when he says present your body as a living sacrifice. Theres a reason he says living sacrifice and not a dead one. We should be living every day in a constant effort to worship God with the things we say and do.

So if you don’t get anything else from what we’ve talked about tonight I hope you get this: Worship is an extremely important part of our relationship with God. We can worship through our callings, through our relationships, through our conversations we have. But one way that we like to worship at church is through song. So I ask that while we sing this last song, think about your worship habits. What can you be doing differently? How can you worship in a way that brings you closer to God?