In Reverence - Worship
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Introduction
Introduction
Last week we talked about prayer and explored why we pray and how we pray and we started by talking about reverence and what it mean to take a posture of reverence.
Reverence is defined as deep respect for someone or something.
And the challenge to approach prayer in reverence before the Lord. Now show of hands, how many of you found it difficult to pray?
Praying aloud is hard. I know that there is an element of you being challenged to do so, but there shouldn’t be any pressure in it. As we saw last week, even Jesus told the disciples to pray in private rather than pray in a way that is meant for others to hear how great of a prayer you are.
But prayer is step one.
As we think about what it means to live a life that remains rooted in Christ, we should always start with prayer.
And when we pray we are called to do it in a way that is
Vulnerable
Pray with faith
Today as we have moved passed the first step of prayer we are going to look at how and why we worship in reverence to God.
LET’S PRAY
WHAT IS WORSHIP?
As we step into the space of worship today, a reminder that we are called to do it in reverence. It is meant to be a sacred space where we get to Worship God.
But let’s start there: What is worship?
WORSHIP is defined as the feeling or expression of reverence for a diety.
Can you worship something or someone other than God?
What does that look like?
You can absolutely worship something other than God. Paul actually calls a church in Acts out on this.
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
Paul gets a little sarcastic here and calls people “very religious” because they take a step further in worship in that they chose to worship even a god that is unknown.
Worship has in large part become this thing that we now associate with music and that’s it. It is just how we start a service and how we end and it comes just before prayer. That is what most of us say worship is. But that is just the beginning of Worship.
My favorite passage in the Bible is Romans 12:1-2
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
This is something we covered quite a bit last year. What does true worship mean? it is living sacrificially. Giving our whole beings and surrendering to Christ. True worship is us telling God that he is in control.
Worship is the expression of full surrender to God.
It is us making the conscience decision to say okay God this is all yours.
When we act in reverence as we step into worship it allows us to recenter what worship even is.
When we sing praises in worship it is us expressing to God our gratitude for what he has done. It allows us to sing together about the greatness of God. It re-centers our life of full surrender and puts us in the posture to receive his word for us. It is why we do it before the message.
Worship is the expression of full surrender to God.
WHO OR WHAT DO YOU WORSHIP?
So who do you worship?
Think about the Lords prayer again when Jesus ends by asking God to deliver us from evil. Even the example of what a reverent prayer looks like ends with a form of true worship.
We defined prayer as PRAYER: a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.
When we act in reverence as we step into worship it allows us
The object of worship is key here. Who or what do you worship?
We live in a world that glorifies doing what makes us happy that it leads us to worship and uplift empty things. Objects, status, money, relationships. These become the focus of what drives us. And we don’t learn from our mistakes or the mistakes of our ancestors. The first night of small groups we talked about how life moves in cycles or meaningless achievement on earth. Solomon wrote this well before Jesus and the church was established, but still they did not listen.
Paul addresses this when writing to the church in Corinth. He says:
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.
11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.
He reminds them of their history upholding sin on this high standard and it led to their demise and even their death.
When we worship things that are empty or worship in a way that is not reverent it leads to destruction. You have have the best intentions and be like the church in ACTS that is so religious that they worship even the unknown god.
Where you put your time, money, and energy the most and where your focus resides the most is who or what you worship.
HOW DO YOU WORSHIP? - CONCLUSION
We oftentimes diminish what true worship is supposed to be. Worship becomes corrupted when we focus more on the act itself and less on the person we are worshipping. This is so true in today’s culture.
I remember growing up we used to look forward to camps and retreats because of the worship. Especially the Hispanic youth conferences. Man they would get DOWN. The worship was low key kind of epic. Everybody was crying at the end of the night and everybody wanted to be missionaries because it was that good. Everything from upbeat songs that get you dancing to soft songs that make you cry. But I will be the first person to admit that it was more the feeling I was chasing after that was empty because it was a feeling that I could only find when the right worship song was on.
It created this dynamic of worship where it was just about how a song made me feel and not about the God I was worshipping.
Think about the moments of worship that have been sweetest in your life. Oftentimes you find that those moments were not these crazy elaborate songs in the middle of a crazy worship session. Sometimes stripping it down to the basics allows us to reenter into a posture of reverence for the LORD. I saw this at camp before we left or even the times when we do worship nights and its just a guitar and a cajon.
There is a reverence that comes with Worship because we are worshipping a God that is greater than any form of praise we can give him.
We worship by living lives of full sacrifice. We worship when we chose to stop and pray. We worship when we recognize that we have made mistakes and need to ask for forgivenss. We worship when we sing songs of praise. We worship when we chose to spend our Tuesday nights here instead of anywhere else. Of when we are somewhere else, regardless of what we are doing and the season we are in, our focus remains on God.
My favorite passage in the Bible that explains when we worship is in 1 Chronicles 6:23-31
23 Sing to the Lord, all the earth;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
24 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
25 For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.
26 For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
27 Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and joy are in his dwelling place.
28 Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
29 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come before him.
Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
30 Tremble before him, all the earth!
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
31 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!”
Tonight, before we go to small groups, we are going to spend some time worshipping with a couple of songs. As we do, I want you to take a moment to pray that as we enter into this time, we can enter it with a heart that is reverent and desires to sing praises to God.
Edwin and Jonesie are going to lead us in two of my favorite songs, but before they do, LET’S PRAY.