Psalms 95:1-95:11
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our
salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at
Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah b in the
wilderness,
9where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what
I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that
generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go
astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
Loving God Through Worship
But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 God is [a]spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” – John 4:23,24 NASB
How Can We Give God The Worship He Desires?
What Worship Is Not:
1. ENTERTAINMENT
2. THERAPY
3. EVANGELISM
What Is Worship In Spirit And Truth:
1. Equal parts INTELLECT and EMOTION
2. Equal parts INTENT and MOTIVE
3. Equal parts INSPIRATION and GUIDANCE
Gary Thomas, In His Book Sacred Pathways, Identifies Nine Personalities Types That Draw Near To God:
NATURALISTS - when they are outdoors.
SENSATES - when all their senses are engaged
TRADITIONALISTS - in maintaining familiarity
ASCETICS - in solitude and simplicity
ACTIVISTS - when they are battling injustice and evil
CAREGIVERS - through caring for those who hurt
ENTHUSIASTS - by experiencing celebration
CONTEMPLATIVES - through adoration and meditation
INTELLECTUALS - when their mind is fully engaged
God made us for worship. This is why we were created and why he gave us free will, to choose to worship him.
"Our hearts are restless until they rest in him."
- Augustine -
OPENING ILLUS.
An English visitor described football as 22 men in desperate need of rest, being watched by 70,000 people in desperate need of exercise. The NFL estimates that 100 million people watch by television some part of a football game on any given Sunday. Given that 1,696 people make NFL rosters each year, that's a ratio of 60,864 fans per player. Watching every mistake, every penalty. Every fan sure he or she could do it better.
We can afford to be spectators in some areas of our lives—but not with our souls.
Why worship matters
Love must be a choice. God made us to make this choice.
A.W. Tozer said, “Worship is the missing jewel of the church.”
Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, said, “Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God – it whets our appetite.
And God deserves our worship. We love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:10). He created and redeemed us, and made us a place in his perfect heaven forever. He watched his Son die on our cross, to save our souls and purchase our salvation. He gave everything for us. He deserves our worship.
When did he last receive yours?
Someone once said, “We have become a generation of people who worship our work, work at our play and play at our worship.”
In Psalm 95 we find seven elements of worship and I have put these into an acrostic spelling out the word W.O.R.S.H.I.P. in order to help make them more memorable.
W – WORSHIP GOD ON HIS TERMS.
O – OVERFLOW WITH GOD’S PRAISE.
R – Reflection on God’s qualities
S – Submission SUBMIT TO GOD AS HIS POSSESSION.
H – Hear HEAR GOD’S PROCLAMATION.
I – Inspire IMPLEMENT GOD’S PLAN.
P – Proclaim PREPARE YOUR HEART TO ENTER GOD’S PRESENCE.
CONCLUSION:
A parable is told of a community of ducks waddling off to duck church one Sunday to hear their duck preacher. After they waddled into the duck sanctuary, the service began and the duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly.
He pounded the pulpit with his beak and said, “With these wings, there is nowhere we ducks can not go! There is no God-given task we ducks cannot accomplish! With these wings we no longer need walk through life. We can soar high in the sky!”
Shouts of “Amen!” were quacked throughout the duck congregation.
The duck preacher concluded his message by exclaiming, “With our wings we can fly through life! WE … CAN … FLY!!! More ducks quacked out loud AMENS! in response.
Every duck loved the service. In fact all the ducks that were present commented on what a wonderful, powerful message they had heard from their duck preacher … and then they left the church and waddled all the way home.
How often do we waddle to church, waddle through our worship and then waddle back out the same way we waddled in? It doesn’t have to be that way. Begin to put these seven principles into practice and you will begin to express genuine love for God through your worship.
πατήρ (patēr)
Strong: G3962
GK: G4252
a father, Mt. 2:22; 4:21, 22; spc. used of God, as the Father of man by creation, preservation, etc., Mt. 5:16, 45, 48; and peculiarly as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Mt. 7:21; 2 Cor. 1:3; the founder of a race, remote progenitor, forefather, ancestor, Mt. 3:9; 23:30, 32; an elder, senior, father in age, 1 Jn. 2:13, 14; a spiritual father, 1 Cor. 4:15; father by origination, Jn. 8:44; Heb. 12:9; used as an appellation of honor, Mt. 23:9; Acts 7:2
INTENT V. MOTIVE
In criminal law, there is a sharp distinction between intent and motive.
intent is the purpose to use a particular means to effect such result, it is normally an element of a crime, intent can be established based on a person’s manifest, external actions, e.g., intent to kill is established when a person inflicts mortal wounds on a person
Motive is the moving power which impels one to action for a definite result, it is often not an element of a crime, motive then suggests an inquiry into the state of mind of a person and his thoughts (which is difficult, if not impossible, to conclusively determine), while.
By distinguishing between intent and motive, the chances of legislating “thought-crimes” are avoided since the commonly required element of criminal intent will only be manifested once there are overt acts (or omissions) by an accused. It is a principle in criminal law that one is punished for one’s actions, not for what one thinks.
This post was originally written for a class in Information Technology Law when I was an LLM student at the University of Edinburgh.
JOKE:
Two young boys were walking down the street in downtown Minneapolis when out from an alley ran a Rottweiler and attacked one of the boys. The other boy grabbed a 2x4 lying near the alley and beat the dog to death and saved his friend’s life. A reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune got wind of the story and requested an interview from the first boy. He ran the story on the front page and the headline read: “Vikings Fan Bravely Saves Friend’s Life From A Rabid Rottweiler.” The boy called the reporter and said, “I’m not a Vikings fan.” The reporter said, “Well, I just thought that since you are from Minneapolis that you would be a Vikings fan. I’ll correct the mistake in tomorrow’s paper.” The next day the front page read: “Timberwolves Fan Bravely Saves Friend’s Life From Rabid Rottweiler.” The boy again called the reporter and said, “I’m not a Timberwolves fan either!” The reporter asked, “Are you a fan of sports at all?” The boy said, “Yes. In fact, I am a die-hard Green Bay Packer’s fan.” The reporter agreed to note the change in the next day’s newspaper. The next day the front page read: “Redneck Idiot Kills Faithful Family Pet!” That was the reporter’s viewpoint and of course it was a rather biased viewpoint all though in this part of the country there just might be few people who would be sympathetic to it.
Vince Lombardi was one of the winningest coaches who ever coached in the NFL. Once, after losing a game, he called for a team meeting in the locker room. As he faced these seasoned, hardened men who knew the game of football inside and out, he held up a football and announced, “Men, this is a football!” He then began to remind them of some of the fundamentals of the game and said, “Men, we must get back to the basics.” Lombardi knew the importance of never forgetting the basics – the fundamentals of the game. He believed that the strength of their game lay in the foundations of football – the very basics.
Governor Alfred Smith of New York illustrated how we should see God:
Governor Alfred Smith was invited to make a speech at a convention dinner. He discovered when he arrived at the convention banquet hall that the predominately out-of-state audience had – to quote Gov. Smith – a “super sillious, condescending, semi-enibriated interest in him”. They thought that Alfred Smith was kind of fun joke, and his insight into what they must have been thinking about him was verified when the toastmaster gave the governor a “flippant, jocous introduction climaxed by the phrase, ‘And now, boys, I give you a great guy, Al Smith.’” Not very formal or respectful to say the least.
Now Governor Smith was the last guy in the world to insist on idle ceremony, or on empty formality, but on this occasion he sensed an affront not only to himself personally, but also to his office and his heritage, and he made his point briefly and tersely. He said, “Gentlemen, when I was a little boy on the east side, my father took me to see a great civic parade. I held his hand tightly as battalion after battalion of marching infantry came by. And then suddenly my father stiffened. I almost felt a tingling pride thrilling his being. Swiftly he said, ‘Son, take off your hat. The governor of New York is passing by.’ I took off my hat. Gentlemen, the governor of New York bids you good night.” And with that he walked out the door.
Are we sometimes guilty of treating God like that?
