Born To Worship

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. This morning we have gathered to worship. As we think of worship or to worship, what does that mean to you? What thoughts come to your mind as you got up this morning and you thought about a day of rest and worship? [00:00:32] What do you think of? What is our concept of worship? And how does it relate to us in our lives? You know, maybe there was a time when you dressed your small son and he said, Do I have to go to church today again? And then we might have replied, Yes, we want to worship God. And maybe he asked you, Well, what does it mean to worship? How would you respond? [00:01:05] What does it mean to worship? How do we worship? worship. You know, I expect all of us can probably make a little mental list here of what defines our worship. But I imagine this list could be a little bit different than this list or that list. And there's various different forms in which we can worship. There's various ways that we [00:01:36] Let's redirect our worship. And across the globe, there's many different kinds of worship. You've seen probably on hats or t-shirts or I've seen it on billboards, born to hunt, born to fish, born to shop. But I believe this morning that each one of us of mankind is born to worship. I believe God has created within each one of us an instinct of worship, and I use that for a lack of better term. [00:02:15] Maybe we could say an internal or inborn nature to worship something, someone. And I don't have any verses that just really specifically verify that But as I studied here recently on why we are or how we are created And studied on why we are created It becomes very obvious to me that we are born to worship [00:02:48] And we can echo the words of the psalmist as he ends the psalms and he says, Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. You know, with that inborn nature of worship comes the freedom and responsibility to direct our worship. Man will always worship, but it's in our place to direct our worship. [00:03:19] God calls us to worship Him. Many have chosen to direct otherwise or in other ways. In the Old Testament, I thought of the first commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Through the voice of Moses, through the voice of the prophets, And David, the psalmist, time and time again, he invites us to worship him. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. [00:03:53] O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. Through the prophets he called his people to worship him. Jesus reaffirms it again where he met Satan. And he says, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. [00:04:24] That's what God wants. He wants worship to him. Well, what is worship? How do we worship? I don't even begin to say that I fully understand or will fully exhaust worship. Because there's some sense in which we can never fully understand worship. There's some sense in which I believe that someday we will be, or I trust you will be there, [00:04:56] in heaven where we will experience a greater dimension of worship of what we have never experienced or know nothing of today as we see our Lord face to face. What is worship? Webster's gives this. He says reverence, devotion for a deity, religious homage, I think that's pronounced right, or veneration, a feeling of deep respect. Strongs give the idea of to prostrate oneself in homage [00:05:33] Adore, that word homage means anything given or done to show reverence, honor, respect To give allegiance to I found it interesting that the English word worship is derived of worth-ship Kind of denoting that the worthiness of the object that we worship [00:06:06] or the value of the individual receiving this special honor it's due to his worth that we worship. And I think that true worship sees those qualities that exist in him in Jesus Christ, and seeks to emulate or reproduce these qualities in ourselves. Don't you find it that way? When you are worshiping, when you are reading your Bible, or through a message, or through Sunday school, [00:06:43] or in quiet meditation, your eyes and your hearts become enlightened as you see God. And you see his worthiness. And you see the dimension that he is. We see his worth and we respond in adoration. We come away from that place desiring to be like him. [00:07:16] And it's interesting because others can say, can look and say, that man has been with Jesus or that man has fellowship with his Lord. It's something also that shows. Could we also say then that by what we show could also be an indicator or an indication to whom we are worshiping? You know, for instance, I remember as a young teenager, a group of us boys were very caught up in following basketball. [00:07:56] And one of our heroes was Michael Jordan. and at the pinnacle of his career and there was posters, there was pictures, there was all kinds of things about him but there was one distinctive trait that you would always see in most of his pictures as he was driving for the basket or as he was shooting the ball, he would hang his tongue out And you know what? I remember as a young teenager, sometimes when we'd play basketball, we'd drive for the basket. [00:08:34] What do you think we did? We hung our tongue out. Now, it didn't help anything, but someone who was watching, could it have given any indication of whom we held in high regard, Who we place value on That's just a small example But do you think others could maybe possibly see As we think of our response to fashion [00:09:09] As we think of our response to entertainment Or the way we run our business Of whom we place value on Again, we have the responsibility and the freedom to direct our worship. God wants to volunteer worship to Him and to Him alone. There are many scriptures that relate to worship. I'd like to begin in John 4.23, the familiar verse of Jesus as He was speaking to the woman at the well. [00:09:51] And he makes the declaration or the statement, God is a spirit, verse 20, I think it's 24, God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Now I'm not sure that I fully understand everything that he's saying in this verse. But I guess in my limited understanding, I would see God as, He says He's a spirit. [00:10:23] We would say He's here this morning. Do you see Him? Do you touch Him? He's here and yet we cannot physically see Him. God is a spirit. And as we respond in worship, it must be in His nature. It must be a spirit worship or a soul worship. Could it be that it has to do with the attitudes of our heart that he's seeking? [00:10:55] Those things that we can't necessarily touch or feel, but that is there? I'd like to focus this morning on various attitudes of true worship. And I know there's many different ones, and to me they're just all kind of hung together almost. It's hard to divide them out. But I trust it won't be too many different things that we can't remember. But I believe that God wants us to worship with a condition of our heart, in the spirit of worship. [00:11:30] And that's why I'd like to highlight some attitudes that I've found in scriptures relating to worship. Psalms 24, I'd like to read verses 3 through 6. Psalms 33, 4-9 For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth. [00:12:04] He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap. He layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. He uses the term here, awe, to stand in awe of Him. [00:12:36] To stand in awe, I believe, refers to a feeling of deep, profound respect or wonder that's inspired by the greatness, the superiority, the grandeur of God suggests an immobilizing effect on us. And I trust you've probably experienced that as you see creation. There are times when you have to stand in awe as we see what God has formed. [00:13:12] I think of it as a holy hush, for we just can't fathom the greatness of our God. Sometimes we say things blow our minds, and it really can do that, as it were. We just can't comprehend. He defies logic. in that how can you take nothing and make something, and not just one thing, but much. [00:13:43] You know, here it refers to creation, but creation is only the beginning of God. I think of salvation and the cross that bridges or that spans the chasm between man and God and on to an eternity of which we cannot fathom or grasp. And you just have to stand in awe of the wonder of our God. [00:14:17] The song says, oh, the wonder of it all. I hope that we don't lose that attitude of wonder in our worship to Him. Habakkuk 2 verse 20 highlights another one. But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him. In Psalms 4 verse 4, speaking, I believe, of private devotion. [00:14:52] Stand in awe and sin not, commune with your heart upon your bed, and be still, Selah. The prophet Zechariah and Zephaniah both saw the wisdom of quieting our hearts in the presence of God. You know, we live in a very noisy world. society. There seems to be always things that you hear or always something playing, music that's going or other noise, entertainment or things to take up a thoughts. And I'm not sure, but I believe that it's just an effort to block out that conscience. [00:15:45] But we really need quiet reflection. I don't know how it is for you, but it is for me that I, most often that God speaks to me is in the quietness. He speaks in a quiet voice. The question that I have of myself, how much quiet time do I give Him? Maybe it can be in the quietness of the night, or in the quietness of our room, or wherever we might have our private devotion, [00:16:19] but we can have quiet time as we drive the road and create those moments of where we quiet our hearts. I believe a key in developing a quiet heart in worship is to be able to turn down, to turn off the volume of the things of this life, the earthly, material things of our daily life. [00:16:53] You know, sometimes mornings, as I'm reading, there's thoughts that come in it's about time to go I need to be on work in time there's other people waiting how am I going to accomplish everything today or different things that militate against quietness a still heart we can maybe sit here this morning and be listening [00:17:24] or at least appearing to, but our minds may be far from here. And I'm sure that all of us have encountered those times of where our minds have been drawn elsewhere. But where are our hearts? Can we be able to tune out and to quiet our hearts before a holy God? You know, quiet meditation I think has some real benefits. [00:17:57] And last night as I was thinking about that, I had to wonder, and I say this as much to myself as to anyone else. What would it do if we would be here by quarter after, and we would have a minute or two of pleasantries, And we would file in here and sit down. And we would meditate and pray for about seven minutes or so. [00:18:31] The last five minutes maybe Jamin would start some singing that would lead us into worship. And by 9.30, in that spirit of quietness, we would be ready to start a service. I wonder what would that do to our services? I don't know. We can also prepare at home, I realize that. Maybe we ought to try. Yes, I think quiet meditation in which God can speak to our hearts is worship. [00:19:10] Psalms 89.7 reads this way, God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him. Reverence. Reverence is a feeling of deep respect that's kind of mingled with love. And it suggests an outward display. Today, twice in Leviticus, God reminds the children of Israel to keep His Sabbaths and reverence My sanctuary. [00:19:53] I am the Lord. I'm sure He was referring to the temple. Yet we, our bodies, are the temple of the living God. And as we come into His presence, I believe there ought to be reverence, a reverent heart. Even Paul uses that word in Hebrews 12, 28, of how he says how we're able to serve God acceptively. And how is that? In reverence and godly fear. [00:20:26] Psalms 95, 6, one we can, we already referred to this morning and we all know. O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. I note that he uses three words that to me speak of a posture. And I don't believe he's only talking about a physical posture, but a posture of the heart. He says, let us worship. [00:20:59] Remember what Strong says, to prostrate to oneself. He uses to bow, meaning to fall to our knees, to sink to our knees, and kneel before our God as a meaning of on our knees giving praise to our Lord. You know, it's said that in ancient Greek and the Romans, rejected the idea of kneeling in worship. [00:21:40] It was unthought of for a free man to kneel. They call it barbaric. But I tell you, for God's people, it's a right posture of the heart. You know, as we focus on Christ and see His worth, it creates within me a deep respect that I can't keep from showing. A love for Him, and we just respond in a way that shows reverence. [00:22:16] You know, as I studied that word reverence and looked at the scriptures relating to it, Not once do I sense or see a hint of casualness, flippancy, lightheartedness. It's just not there. I'm not sure what you think of when you think of casualness. Do you think of dress? Do you think of attitudes? Do you think of how we keep the Lord's day, whether we're here or away? Do you think of speech? [00:22:48] but it could probably all relate in different ways to those and I don't have a pat answer for each one of those but I wonder if a question wouldn't help us in making right choices and making right decisions and that is, have I given God the highest place, the highest position, the highest respect in all that I do? through reverence. You know, we just can't place God in the highest position without also showing it or that it flows out from us. [00:23:32] Now I'd like to look at Psalms 24 verses 3 through 6. David asked, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place? And he replies, He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob, Selah. [00:24:08] Clean hands to me speak of honesty, truthfulness, sticky hands are definitely not that, we refer to that as dishonesty Pure heart, purity, being right with God In another portion he says the beauty of holiness Known sin always prohibits worship. [00:24:40] I find it interesting that here in verse 4, he refers to both the inward and the outward. And I don't think that we can put emphasis on one above the other. They are both together. You know, I think we can have an outward show of reverence or an outward show of worship, but our hearts being not worshiping. But I don't think we can ever truly worship and not show anything on the outside. [00:25:13] I just don't think that that's possible. You know, Jesus said to the scribes and the Pharisees, Matthew 18, 9 and 8 and 9, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me. You know, Leon mentioned on Wednesday evening about facades. And that was a very thought-provoking question. What? Do I have a facade? [00:25:45] Do I attempt a facade before God, who can anyhow see through those? Am I honest? God desires a holy heart, a true heart. Also in the attitude of worship, I find humility. In Ecclesiastes, it brings it out so clear. I'll just read it from there. Ecclesiastes 5, first few verses. [00:26:16] Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools For they consider not that they do evil Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God For God is in heaven and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few The question that I had to ask myself this morning is, do I come with an agenda? [00:26:52] Do I come with thinking my way, my thoughts? Do I ask God in prayer to Him to bless my plans? I think it shows an attitude of the heart as I think of humility. You know, if God speaks to me, is my heart the type that responds, Yes, Lord, that was specifically for me. Or do about three other people come to your mind that could use it. [00:27:27] You know, God gives grace to the humble. Do we come with all the answers? No, I'm sure. We would all say we don't have all the answers. And we don't. And I don't think that this passage is referring or saying that since we don't have the answers, we're just going to keep it quiet and not share anything. I think that what these scriptures are saying is to be in the spirit of humility, openness to His guidance. [00:28:04] As I read many of these scriptures relating to worship, there was something that kept coming to my mind. And this word is not even found in scripture, but I believe it's throughout many of the scriptures. And that's the word anticipation. Expectancy, that I feel somehow is connected in the attitude of worship. I believe it's important. The words that I found that gave me that indication was seek, desired, thirsted, longeth, run, glad. [00:28:49] To me that speaks of an anticipation to worship. You know, I think it's very obviously seen in our children. If we're excited about something, they get excited too. In a lot of cases, may not everything. And you know, as we see the value of anticipation, I think it greatly affects what we leave with. You know, I think we will leave with what we come prepared to receive. [00:29:28] Maybe we could illustrate and say, you know, we could walk into a large department store or some kind of large store and walk out with a dollar item, even though there's thousands and millions of dollars available. But if we weren't prepared, then neither do we walk out with any of it. And I wonder as we anticipate worship and prepare our hearts, what we put into, we will most often get out. [00:30:05] A heart in worship is also a heart that is full of praise. 1st Chronicles 16.9 Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk, talk ye of his wondrous works Psalms 26.7 That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving You know that's such a large element of worship that I'm not sure what should be said. [00:30:40] You know, I'm blessed when others testify and praise the Lord for what He has done in their lives. But I just admit too often I'm a little slow at it myself. I know we can never praise Him enough. But may we be the individual that is willing to testify if there's opportunity. There's probably more that could be shared in worship and these are just a few of the attitudes that I was inspired. [00:31:18] I had to think just a few months ago in the youth class. We were studying in Malachi, and there the people were bringing polluted sacrifices, polluted offerings to the altars. They were bringing animals that were torn, lame, and sick, when they should have been bringing the first fruits, the best. [00:31:51] It seemed they were bringing the leftovers. And I wonder at times of my worship, do I offer the leftovers? You know, sometimes we work hard all week up to Saturday night and then what's left over comes to church. Can we give Him our firstfruits, our best, our all? [00:32:27] And I believe that the results of true worship is a relationship, we receive strength, we receive inspiration as we truly worship Him with these attitudes. attitudes, and there's probably more. God desires our worship, and we have a freedom and responsibility again to direct that worship. And may we do so in godly fear, in reverence, as we sense His value in what He has done for us, that we offer the sacrifice of praise.