* Worship! What Is It?*
(Note: About one third of this message came from an outline by Robert J. Arnott. in The Ministeer’s Manual 1963)
INTRODUCTION:
1.) What goes on when a congregation gathers in the house of God for worship?
2.) Does anything important really happen to us as a congregation? Or to you as an individual?
3.) Multitudes have considered worship the deepest, the most meaningful experience of which men are capable.
4.) Let us try to discover why worship is so important.
I. WORSHIP QUICKENS THE CONSCIENCE.
1.) Worship quickens the conscience by reminding us of the holiness of God.
A.) The conscience is one of our most valuable possessions.
aa.) It is the voice of our real self speaking out to the will.
B.) The voice makes itself heard across the turmoil of our feelings, thoughts, and temptations, and speaks on behalf of our best and highest self.
ba.) That's why it is so dangerous to ignore or go against conscience.
bb.) To do so is an act of suicide, putting to death the living center of one's own being.
C.) The Apostle Paul addressed this subject with the Church at Rome.
ca.) Those of whom Paul was speaking were the Gentiles. In the first century church when the term Gentiles was used it was not just a term that differentiated them from the Jews in regards to circumcision, but it also was a term that was used as an indication of being in a sinful lifestyle.
cb.) But what I want us to see here in Rom. 1 was the reason for their sinfulness and wickedness.
cba.) The reason for their wickedness, and for God turning them over to their own desires was that they had drifted further into sinfulness because of not honouring God with their worship.
cbb.) Rom. 1:21-23, 25
cbc.) You see, several times in this passage of Scripture Paul says that these individuals refused to worship God, and so God gave them over, or allowed their consciences ot become deadened to the presence and power of God.
cbd.) The downward spiral that comes from a heart that will not worship God, continues to lead down ward to a conscience that is deadened.
cbd-1.) When an individual has allowed his conscience to become deadened, there is no stopping of sin coming into that person’s life.
cbd-2.) The less a person gives of himself in worship to the Creator, the more his conscience dies, and the more it dies, the further he will go into a sinful life, and a life apart from the presence of God.
cc.) Our consciences need to be corrected by the holiness of God. When we are opening ourselves to worship the Holy God, is seen in His perfect holiness, and we are seen in our unholiness.
cd.) When we as unholy as we are, humble ourselves in worship of the Holy God of the universe, Our consciences are quickened, and made alive,
ce.) When this happens we are convicted by our consciences, and brought low before God.
cea.) What is so great about being brought so low, is that at that point we can see Jesus, and what He has done for us, and what we could not do for ourselves.
ceb.) When we are at that point, the glory goes away from ourselves, and is given back to God to whom it belongs.
cec.) When we have come to that place of realizing Who God is, and that we ourselves are not God, than our worship will have reached its goal of transformation of our lives.
II. WORSHIP OPENS OUR HEARTS.
1.) In worship we open our hearts to the love of God.
A.) The central theme in the preaching of Jesus, and in all the pages of the New Testament, is that God is love.
B.) In scores of different ways Jesus rang the changes on this theme.
C.) So God loves us.
ca.) In worship we understand that.
cb.) However aimless and lonely or cold life may seem to be; however guilty, however much of a failure we may feel—here in the sanctuary of God we can lift up our hearts to him in worship and know that he cares for us.
2.) In our worship, we become like that what we worship.
A.) Ps. 135:15-18
B.) Yes it is true that we each one become like who or what we worship.
C.) The reality of that truth is not necessarily a bad thing.
ca.) It can be, if we are worshipping anything less than God Himself.
cb.) The prophet Isaiah had a powerful worship experience with the Living God.
cba.) God sent him a heavenly being to symbolically cleanse his mouth and lips with a burning coal.
cbb.) Is. 6:5-7
cbc.) In his desire to worship, God, God gave him cleansing, and brought Isaiah to a higher level than he had been before.
cc.) Throughout The Revelation, the worshippers of God and the inhabitants of the earth are stamped with the image, (that is the character, name, and “number of the name” of their object of worship.) cca.) In other words, you can tell who they serve by what they think (foreheads) and what they do (hands).
ccb.) In Revelation, God puts a mark or a seal on the foreheads of those who worship Him.
ccb-1.) Rev. 7:3
ccc.) The beast representing the powers of Satan, also put a mark on his followers.
ccc-1.) Rev. 13:16-17
cd.) The reality is that everyone becomes like that which we worship.
cda.) When our hearts are open to worship the true and Living God, we become like him in our life, and our values, and who we are.
III. WORSHIP HELPS DEDICATE OUR WILLS.
1.) In worship we are inspired to dedicate our wills to the purposes of God.
A.) This can be seen in Moses as he went up onto Mount Sinai for the second time.
aa.) After the Israelites’ sin of making the golden calf to worship, Moses led them back to dedicating themselves back to God.
B.) There were three things Moses did with the People to rededicate themselves:
ba.) They consciously rededicated themselves to God.
baa.) Exod. 19:7-8
bb.) They got ready to see the Lord.
bba.) Exod. 19:9-11
bc.) They gave reverence to the Lord.
bca.) Exod. 19:11-12
bcb.) It was about a year before this that Moses was here at the foot of this mountain tending sheep, when God had called Him through a burning bush.
bcb-1.) It was at this same area where the Israelites were now also told to give reverence to God.
C.) The act of worship helps us to dedicate our wills to the will of God showing reverence to Him.
2.)The high point in any experience of worship comes when a man or a woman or a church realizes that we have a mission to the world we live in.
A.) We do not exist for ourselves.
aa.) The church does not exist for itself. It exists for the sake of carrying forward God's purpose into the world.
B.) Worship which does not end in devoting your will to the purpose and service of God is not worship at all—it is just a cheap parody of the real thing. ba.) Real worship is a doorway where we pause for blessing and through which we go on to share with others the joys we know in Christ.
