Praise and Worship
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 52 viewsNotes
Transcript
[Pray]
Good morning. As we may all know, a few weeks ago football started back up. For awhile it seemed like there was no chance of it happening. I’m happy it did, it’s the sport I enjoy watching the most. When you stop to think about sports, and break them down, they are a funny thing.
Now I’m not hear to say sports are evil or spending time watching them is sinning, that’s not where I’m going with this. Just hang with me for a bit and let’s examine them. They typically revolve around a goal of getting some object, a basketball, football, baseball, to some point in a field or court. And if you get it to that location, you score points. Score more points than the other team, and you win.
Now, there is a lot of strategy to accomplish the goal, because of course, you have an opponent. The concept, though, is so simple and the advancement it brings to society is actually nothing. It’s a game, it’s for enjoyment.
The new highest paid football player, Patrick Mahomes, just signed a 10 year contract for 450 million dollars. A 45 million dollar a year salary. Now he’s a really good football player, he’s on pace to be the best quarterback ever. But how is it possible for an organization to pay 1 player that much money? Well the sport brings in a lot of money. So how does the sport ring in so much money, because many people, one of them being myself, for some reason enjoy watching a group of guys run a football around the field, it’s funny when you say it out loud like that. The first game of the year had 19.3 million people watching.
Okay, so why do so many people enjoy watching and giving attention to sports or any other big events or famous person, this isn’t just a sports thing. Could be your favorite actor/actress or a concert of your favorite band, how about your favorite book author, favorite motivational speaker, favorite politician. There’s a variety of things we get enjoyment from, and sometimes we give it far too much attention, a lot of it comes down to we love to admire and praise what we consider worthy. Why? Because that’s how God made us, he instilled that desire to praise in us, and He commanded us to praise Him above all else. However, he gave us free will to praise whatever we want. So the question is, who or what are we praising? Are we giving God the praise he deserves?
We are called to praise God and Him alone.
You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.
Now combine that with
And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.
If you don’t stop to meditate on God, these verses can come across as need-y. If a person demanded praise, we’d consider them very arrogant and insecure. We’re not used to hearing these words. It can take us off guard.
But if you think about how we receive so much enjoyment admiring people in this world who we deem worthy of praise, isn’t God really looking after what he knows would bring us the most satisfaction when he calls us to praise Him. When it comes to being worthy, God is at the the top of the list, in fact, he’s the only one who should be on the list. I can’t speak for you, but I can speak for myself in saying there have been too many times where I’ve given so much energy and praise to people and failed to give any real worship to the Lord.
Worshiping God is our priority. It affects everything in our life. There are so many verses that talks about praising God.
Reading Psalm 95:6-7 would be a great way to start off everyday.
Come, let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker,
for he is our God.
We are the people he watches over,
the flock under his care.
If only you would listen to his voice today!
He is our maker, protector, care taker, so much so he sent his Son to die on the cross. He is our God. He is worthy of praise.
Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Interesting fact, creation was wrapped up in scripture within 1 chapter, 31 verses. The instructions from God about how to make the tabernacle, which was what was made as a place to worship God, took 7 chapters or 243 verses. Worshipping God is a big deal.
In the vision of the prophet Isaiah, he sees angels singing praises to God.
It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”
Now let’s talk about worship, because not all worship is the same. God doesn’t accept any worship. We learn that early on when God rejects Cain’s offering and accepts his brother Abel’s. Whatever form of worship we do, we must do it with the best of intentions and 100% for the Lord. Not holding back anything. We don’t seek to gain anything when we worship the Lord, yes our hearts will be filled with joy when we do, but that’s not why we do it. We do it because we love him and He is worthy.
This isn’t something to go through the motions on. Even if you aren’t seeking to gain anything, so you have the right intentions, but you’re just going through the motions, that does not please the Lord. We have to have the right attitude. Otherwise at that point we’re really believing in legalism. We’re doing it not because we desire to worship, but because that’s what the Word says to do. The Lord looks at the heart.
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name!
“But you ask, ‘How have we ever shown contempt for your name?’
“You have shown contempt by offering defiled sacrifices on my altar.
“Then you ask, ‘How have we defiled the sacrifices?’
“You defile them by saying the altar of the Lord deserves no respect. When you give blind animals as sacrifices, isn’t that wrong? And isn’t it wrong to offer animals that are crippled and diseased? Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is!” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
No we don’t offer up animals as sacrifices anymore, but we do sacrifice and offer up our time and resources to the Lord. And he looks right into our heart and knows when we’re holding back or our attitude isn’t right. That is not real worship. That is not acceptable.
[ Talk about Malachi 3 - the people of Judah started asking, “what’s the point of serving, obeying and confessing our sins to God?” “We’ve gained nothing” ]
Now for acceptable worship, there’s many different forms. Whenever we walk in light and do something for the glory of God, that is acceptable worship. Which is really important to note, because I think worship is something that can be easily thought of as only done when we’re singing songs to God or praying to Him and giving thanks. We live a life of worship, and how much of our life should be done for His glory?
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
All for the glory of God. And when we live like that, a life of acceptable worship, it will affect our relationships.
Serving Christ in the Spirit with Goodness, peace, and joy will please God and others. Many times when we meet someone that’s a genuine Christian, they don’t even need to say the name of Jesus and you can tell they’re a follower. Because of their fruits, how they live, how they worship.
We’re going to fire off multiple verses here talking about different forms of worship.
Righteous character is pleasing worship
May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.
How we treat others, the sharing of gifts and resources, is pleasing worship
At the moment I have all I need—and more! I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me with Epaphroditus. They are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God.
Praying for others is pleasing worship
Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior,
You parents out there will enjoy this one
But if she has children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them. This is something that pleases God.
Eventually the tables flip and we need to take care of our parents.
This next one is a real tough form of worship, it’s not always how we act towards others, but also what we endure from others.
Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you.
Being patient is tough enough as it is, Heather knows I struggle when I think a traffic light has been red for too long. But when we are wrongfully attacked and suffer for doing good, we can’t seek vengeance. Instead, we must endure it patiently.
In summary of the collection of verses we just read through as forms of worship. Our offerings, righteous character, how we treat others, how we pray for others, how we care for our family, how we endure suffering, all for the glory of God, is pleasing worship.
As said earlier, worship affects every area of your life.
There’s one really unique thing about worship. It’s something that will never end. The form of it will, but when we pass from this earth we will be praising and worshiping God in heaven.