What? Worship Together

Why Are we going through this? So we can all know what God has called us here to do so we can move forward with purpose and intentionality. How can we move forward together as the body of Christ to do what God has called us to do. Part of the point behind this is that as a smaller church we are limited as to what we can do, how much we can do so we need to make sure we are strategic about what we do and make sure it lines up with the word of God and what God is calling to do.

we have been looking the why. Why do we do what we do? To Glorify God in all aspects of our lives, to love others not with any love we have but with the love shown us throw Jesus death on the cross to remain in Him and through discipleship show others what it means to remain in Jesus.

Glory to God, loving others making disciples. That is what the bible says as to why God put us here on this earth.

Now we move on to the what, our mission. what are we supposed to be doing while we are here on earth. What is it that God wants us to be doing as a body of believers. Through prayer and much thought we came to the conclusion that here in our community, seeing what we highly value as a church what God has called us here to do as a church is

to worship God together while sharing God’s love as His disciples in our community.

The first aspect of this, worshiping God together. Why is it so important that we make it into a statement saying this is what we do, this is what we are all about? What does it even mean to worship God do you know?

usually we tend to think of worship as singing songs to the Lord, but worship is so much more then that. I grew up in a traditional Baptist church and like all baptist churches outward expressions of worship never happened. we sand with our hands in our pockets or our arms crossed up and down and up and down we listened to the music leader as we did our Sunday morning singing calisthenics. but when it came to the rest of the service I never really saw it as worship, just another boring sermon to listen to. and then when I went home from church, all thoughts of worship got put on the back burner till the following Sunday. Though I had some good friends whose dad pastored a Pentecostal church where we went to youth group. There worship all through the service was peppered with outward worship. When Pastor Karl would take us youth somewhere he would be driving and randomly you would here a hallelujah praise the Lord. Needless to say I was confused as to what worship looked like. Even in there sermons there was the pastor constantly asking for an amen from the congregation.

SO then what does true worship look like? I have even had one person shout hallelujah in the middle of one of my sermons once in a baptist church and I was not sure what to do.

What we are going to look at today is that True worship is, in our hearts and our outward expressions of worship, treasuring God above all else and above all things.

Vain worship

Jon Guerra & Paul Zach - Hosanna Song LYRIC VIDEO - YouTube

First I want to go to the passage that explains what I kept coming back to when I was praying and wrestling through what exactly worship looks like. Before we get into what worship looks like I want to first look into what it is not. if this is really what we are about, worshiping God together, then we need to know more about it.

In Matthew 15 Jesus was approached by the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem. The group accused Jesus and the disciples of breaking the traditions handed down from Moses, or so they said. But as we know they where hypocrites that couldn't even follow there own laws.

Matthew 15:6–7 CSB

he does not have to honor his father.’ In this way, you have nullified the word of God because of your tradition. Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said:

Hypocrites! but the problem the where having according to Jesus is what I want to focus on, a problem that was happening for a long time.

Matthew 15:8–9 CSB

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.”

Vain worship is what was going on. Paying lip service to the king of Kings but their hearts where somewhere else. You see there are two aspects to worshiping the Lord that we need to look at. Inner worship, and outer expressions of worship. We see that here in the book of Matthew when Jesus says that there outward expression or worship may be there but the inner part of worship is way off the mark.

How often are we like this? we worship the Lord with our mouths in church like all is well but our hearts are far from Him. We are just going through the motions. Worshiping God with our mouths when our hearts are somewhere else far away from God. this is not worship, this is zero worship. Worship that is all external but nothing internal does nothing. Jesus said that your heart is far from Him and what He wants is our heart. but what if our hearts are far from Him then what? Psalm 66:16-18

Psalm 66:16–18 CSB

Come and listen, all who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth, and praise was on my tongue. If I had been aware of malice in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

did you get that? If there had been any sin in my heart that had not been dealt with, the Lord would not have listened to my prayers.

How did Jesus define worship

John Piper defines worship as a valuing or a treasuring of God above all things. Just think about it. our hearts, our minds our outward expressions need to honor God in all things, to treasure God above all else and express that by all that we think do and say.

How then does Jesus define worship? Well we take what we have learned so far, worship involves both hearts and lips that honor Jesus. This means dealing with any sin in our lives. But bear with me as I go to a different passage if the opposite of right worship is hearts that are far from God then it stands to reason that we need to know who God is before we can properly worship Him. If we are not learning who God is then how do you think we can really worship Him?

I was reading through the story of the Samaritan women. I was looking through what it really means to worship God and this echoes what Jesus told the Pharisees. Jesus was confronting the Samaritan women on her sin, things he should not have known and she suspected that He was a prophet. So she tried to answer Him spiritually about worship. Jesus response though is what I want to focus on.

John 4:23 CSB

But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.

To worship in Spirit and truth. It is not the place that matters, God can not be contained by any place. Idols are not what we worship but what the Lord is looking for is a people that worship in spirit and in truth. It looks forward to a day that this will happen but is also something we are to strive to follow even now.

Jesus defines worship, true worshipers as depending on a right grasp of who God is, the Character of God. Our worship then is more then just singing songs, it is treasuring God above all things. It is a matter of the heart and an outward expression of that and knowing who God is and our worship is an outpouring of that. We have to get to know God, which means that if we really want to worship Him we need to spend time with Him in His word. This is what it means to worship God in spirit and in truth, looking forward to the day when we will worship Him knowing Him completely for we will worship Him face to face.

So we see that Jesus defines worship not just as an outward expression but a matter of the heart. The problem is the heart is sinful. We cant trust our hearts. Now remember this is not literal but a metaphor for our inner being. The Heart is sinful and we need to spend time getting to know God and who He is. That is why Jesus approached vain worship. Our hearts can become far from God as our lips claim to worship Him. Now this is not getting distracted in church, that is not what this is saying.

we all get distracted sometimes. Parents with kids, how often do you miss something that is being said or have a hard time paying attention because of short attention spans. How often when getting ready for church do we deal with meltdowns. You lost your temper again trying to get the kids out of the door. Everything seems to be going wrong before church and then you get there and instead of having a heart that is worshiping the Lord we are to focused on what it is we forgot to do before we left the house, or little johnny running around, or Jacob running up to the stage to try and get to me. so many distractions to take us out of what God is trying to teach us.

but that is not what I am talking about here. is our hearts matching the praise that is coming out of or mouths. Jesus defines worship as hearts that are seeking Him as well as lips that are praising Him.

How then can we worship

So What? How then should this change our lives? How then can we worship the Lord together? How is it then that we worship the Lord? If what we are here for is to worship the Lord together what then does this look like? If Jesus warned us that if you praise Jesus with our lips yet our hearts are from him then how can we make sure that we praise the Lord with all that we are?

I want to mention 1 more verse, one that I have almost done a whole sermon on before but explains well what we have been going through here.

Romans 12:1 CSB

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.

in view of all that God has done for us, this is my first point here today true worship means that we present all we are to God in worship of Him.

A living sacrifice is what this says we are to be. there is so much involved in this one statement. This is our true worship. To offer ourselves up to God to be used by His glory, all aspects of our lives, in everything we have done we are to offer ourselves to God. Even to the point of being willing to die for Him.

the bible tells us that the old has gone away and all things have become new when we are in Christ. We become new creations. so why would we offer the Lord anything less then our whole beings. sometimes we need to do this daily, or minute by minute. amidst the distractions of the world we constantly need to come to the Lord in prayer and direct ourselves back to Him. amidst all that is going on in the world we need to come back to God and kneel at the alter of the Lord and pray that He would take all that we are, our distractions, our hopes our prayers and make them His own.

whether in our hearts our our outward expressions of worship, all that we are needs to be offered up to the Lord.

If sin in our lives prevents true worship of the Lord we need to ask the Lord to search our hearts and forgive our sins.

Psalm 139:23–24 CSB

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.

Sin in your life is an obstacle to true worship and an obstacle to the Lord hearing our prayers. That means we need to constantly be asking the Lord to search our hearts and deal with any sin we may have in our lives. To, with humility go to the people we have wronged and ask forgiveness for what you have done. if we do not do this then we are just like the pharisees who praise with their lips but their hearts are far from the Lord.

Where is your heart at? it matters not whether you praise God with hallelujahs, with your arms raised high, or you dance around, or whether you worship the Lord quietly. what matters is where your heart is at. It is easy to fool people with the right words and the right actions but if our hearts are far from the Lord then that is not worship, and the Lord will not hear. if what we are truly about is worshipping the Lord together then we need to kneel before the Lord and ask Him to search our hearts and forgive our sins.

True worship means depends on a right grasp of the truth of who God is. a

True worship means depends on a right grasp of the truth of who God is. see with that statement. This is becoming a not so popular statement lately. To stand on the truth of the word of God is one day going to get some people angry at us. but we can never falter. True worship therefore, if we are worshiping the God of the bible then true worship means that in our hears and in our actions depends on a proper grasp of who God is.

How do we do this though? gain a right grasp of who God is and what He has done in our lives? To worship the Lord in truth looks forward to the day when we will see Him face to face. but until that day we search the scriptures for a glimpse into who God is and what he has done and is going to do.

if you believe something about God that goes against what the Bible says, you are not worshiping God but an idol. we must spend time getting to know God and building our relationship with Him.

Worship is so much more then singing songs. worship is something we do with our whole lives, in every action, in every word in all that we do. So let us become a people that worships the Lord in all we do.