The God Of Awe And Wonder Part 4 Worship Series

PP1 The God of Awe and Wonder Worship part 4

JCC 21.02.10 am

PP 2 1 Chron 16:29 Give to the LORD the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come before Him. Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness! NKJV

We have been studying what worship is and we saw how last week the first mention of worship came in Gen 22:5 where Abraham offered up Isaac to the Lord as an act of worship

Worship is more than singing in church and deeper than an outward show of raising our hands before the Lord

It is not always possible to worship with the same degree of intensity

Much will depend on how we feel and the sort of week we’ve had

Last week we saw how preparation was a big part of our worship

We prepare for everything but worship

Leave the troubles of the world at home and focus on the Lord for a moment

We are not people without feelings

Some say, ‘don’t follow your feelings’

If we get up tomorrow and we have no feelings, then we should be worried

Real worship requires some feeling

Real worship brings us to a place of humility

It’s where we disappear into obscurity and Christ becomes prominent

A wonder takes over us as we sense he presence of a holy God

We get to the place where we realise we don’t fully know Him becuse he shows us something else of Glory

Illustration: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a great philosopher, mathematician and thinker. His testimony that he wrote down when he met God was, ‘O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the wise. Good of Jesus Christ, Thy God shall be my God, forget the foolishness of the world, and God who can befriend only in the way taught in the gospel. O righteous Father, the world has not known Thee but, I have known Thee, joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. Amen

He kept this on paper folded up in his pocket as a reminded

Let’s examine five factors of worship:

PP 3 & a 1. A boundless confidence in the character of God

The reason many cannot worship correctly is that they have a low opinion of Him

People reduce God into the image of man, rather than see Him as the God of all the earth

He to these people has limited ability and power

They cannot see the power of Him might and the display of His splendour as we look at creation

They modify Him until He has no resemblance of who He really is

We live in a world where changes happen continually, where we edit and modify things

We do this with Christianity and especially with the Lord Himself

We then no longer see the God that Isaiah saw who was high and lifted up and His robe filled the temple (Is 6)

If we have confidence we have respect

Today, many have neither confidence nor respect in God

Without respect there is no worship

Worship must begin with Him and end with Him

We need to ask the Lord for a renewal of worship

It’s not God that needs recuing, but our concept and how we think about Him

If we see God as the one who is out to hurt us and the one who lets us down, then we will have no confidence in Him for the future

If we think He is out to deceive us and manipulate us, then again we will have no confidence in Him

We must restore and raise our affections towards Him

We need to remember He cannot break a vow

When He made a covenant with us, He meant it

He cannot go back on His word

The God of the whole earth cannot change

The Bible tells us how He is willing to heal, provide and restore

He is willing that none should perish, but that all come to faith in Christ

We either believe Him, or we don’t and we believe another

Read the Bible and see what God is really like

PP 3b 2. Admiration

It is possible to respect God, yet not admire Him

There are people with academic theological degrees who know who He is, yet don’t respect or worship Him

And may not admire Him

How many prayers do you hear where God is the focus of admiration?

We pray and praise as though God is a giant Santa Clause who is to give us gifts every time we ask

We worship the gifts instead of the giver

Read the Psalms, the prayers of Jesus and the Apostles, these are good examples of prayers where God is admired and adored

Do you long to rush into His presence?