How Do You Know If You Have Worshiped?

Intro:

Last week we discussed “What is worship?”

Gabe said that it is responding to God’s deeds and character.

“It’s not the search for a feeling, it’s the response to a truth.”

Why do we worship?

Does God need our help? No...

We are made to worship. It’s like breathing.

Try to hold your breath for a while. It doesn’t take long until your lungs burn for air. In the same way, if you tried to hold your heart still - if you tried to desire nothing - you would find that your heart burned to be used. But if you don’t aim that heart at the right object, it’s like the lungs burning for oxygen but attempting to breath under water.

Brad Bigney example: We often live like scuba divers. We are made to breath real air, but we stay under water and try to live off oxygen tanks. When we run low, we try to find another tank. What we really need is to swim to the surface and draw in a deep breath of glorious air.

Worship is a delight. The more God is glorified, the more we are satisfied (Piper). Worship is aiming the heart right where it needs to go. Like Gabe said last week, we know where to aim the heart because we look at the deeds and character of God. We don’t aim the heart towards a ‘feeling’. We aren’t constantly chasing some elusive experience, rather, we are aiming our hearts at the constant character of God. It’s like the scuba diver looking upward, swimming to the surface and drawing those deep breaths. “This is where I need to be!”, he says.

How do you know if you have worshiped?

Is it a feeling? Does it hit you only when the lights are low and the songs are pretty?

How would we measure if we are actually doing it correctly?

Is it only when the sermon is

Text:

3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. .

How do we know if we have worshiped? Obedience.

We keep His commandments.

What does it really mean to know him? [ginosko = Understand Him] γινοσκο

[Breathing Metaphor again] The inhaling is God’s glory and truth, the exhaling is obedience. That’s what it means to truly breath. It’s all one together. --- If you came to the surface and drank in a deep breath of glory only to then hold your breath, you would find another problem: you need to exhale. In the same way, we cannot simply gaze upon Christ and delight in Him without changing. We must both see Him and savor Him. We must observe His glory and obey His commands. We must delight in Him and be changed by Him.

What does obedience look like?

“Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

[Examples of God requiring obedience]

We not only love Jesus, but we begin to live like Jesus.

There is a very clear distinction in scripture between the bankrupt religion of many and the truth righteousness of Jesus.

  What Does the Lord Require? [Micah]

6  “With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

7  Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8  He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

[1 Samuel]

21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,

and to listen than the fat of rams.

23  For rebellion is as the sin of divination,

and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,

he has also rejected you from being king.” 1

1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

[Romans]

12 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. 2 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. .

[Isaiah]

11  “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?

says the Lord;

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams

and the fat of well-fed beasts;

I do not delight in the blood of bulls,

or of lambs, or of goats.

12  “When you come to appear before me,

who has required of you

this trampling of my courts?

13  Bring no more vain offerings;

incense is an abomination to me.

New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—

I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

14  Your new moons and your appointed feasts

my soul hates;

they have become a burden to me;

I am weary of bearing them.

15  When you spread out your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers,

I will not listen;

your hands are full of blood.

16  Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;

remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;

cease to do evil,

17  learn to do good;

seek justice,

correct oppression;

bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the widow’s cause.

18  “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:

though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red like crimson,

they shall become like wool.

19  If you are willing and obedient,

you shall eat the good of the land;

20  but if you refuse and rebel,

you shall be eaten by the sword;

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 1

1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

[Matthew]

8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

9 in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ” 1

1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

What does obedience look like?

[Back to 1 John] “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

We not only love Jesus, but we begin to live like Jesus. --- That’s the measure of our worship.

There is a very clear distinction in scripture between the bankrupt religion of many and the truth righteousness of Jesus.

It’s possible to say we “know him” without really knowing him. To be a disciple of Jesus means to act like Jesus.

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1

1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Think of Jesus to Peter: “If you love me, tend my sheep and feed my lambs.”

English Standard Version Chapter 4

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

English Standard Version Chapter 5

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

English Standard Version Chapter 15

13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

English Standard Version Chapter 13

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

English Standard Version Chapter 6

35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Does the call of obedience mean that we slavishly serve God?

18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1

1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Christ’s perfect obedience:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

English Standard Version Chapter 5

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.