Monday, we discussed the importance of worship. Today we are talking about the source of worship. And at this point, I go back to the same statement I made earlier. The Father seeks true worshipers. God not only has in mind that we would be true worshipers, but He effects that...He is the source. We are redeemed by His power so that we become true worshipers.
What I’m getting at in that sense is that if someone doesn’t acknowledge the lordship of Christ though they say they might believe in Jesus, if someone isn’t lost, to borrow the hymn, in wonder, love and praise, if someone isn’t consumed with the privilege of being a slave of Jesus Christ who is Lord, if someone isn’t totally devoted to worshiping the Lord, to worshiping God in who He is, then you could ask the legitimate question...is that person one whom the Father has truly sought? You have all kinds of people who talk about Jesus, but you have far less who live lives devoted to His honor. True worshipers are those who have been transformed by the sovereign power of God into those who worship, Philippians 3:3, in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.
What happens when you become a Christian is, you can’t run fast enough from all your fleshly desires. You leave them all behind. That’s again that great statement which is repeated throughout the gospels, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” That’s a true worshiper. True worship is defined by obedience and praise is simply the overflow of that loving heart consumed with the desire to obey and honor the Lord. We are made worshipers.
You don’t have to artificially generate it (I want to scream this at some worship leaders sometimes). It’s the most consistent thing that a believer does, is worship. All you need to do is inform it...INFORM it. That’s why we teach the Word of God at ELEVATION every week. People can't worship what they do not know. In fact, you will never find a week where we do not teach the Word of God. I have been asked countless times from people at different churches that I have served in, “How in the world can your people worship when you give these long sermons? Take up all the time preaching?” And my response was, “How in the world could anybody worship if you didn’t know the truth about God? And the more you know, the more informed your worship is, the more informed your worship is, the more you are a true worshiper.” Worship is from God - He is the source. And our worship is only as deep as our knowledge of who He is.
So, simply said, worship is honoring God for who He is and what He has done and being thankful for both. That’s the sum of it. It is giving honor to God for who He is and what He has done and being thankful for both. This is the end result of knowing Scripture that you might give God the honor He is due. When you go to the Old Testament and read the Psalms which is a book of worship, there’s a kind of format. It goes a little bit like this. The Psalms either tell us the nature of God or the works of God and the appropriate response. You can worship God by going over the things that God has done. For example: God, You’re the God who one day stepped out on the edge of nothing and created everything. You’re the God who by a word created the universe, set the earth spinning in space, surrounded it with the infinite solar system.
You’re the God who in a day made land and sea. You’re the God who in a day created life. You’re the God who in a day created man. You’re the God who placed him in a garden. You’re the God...and on and on you go and you just recite all that God has done and thank Him for it.
You’re the God who parted the Red Sea and delivered Your people from Egypt. You’re the God who preserved Israel and the Messianic line all the way to the arrival of the Messiah. You’re the God who sent Your Son virgin born who lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death, rose, a literal resurrection from the grave, ascended to glory, intercedes for us and one day will come back. This is Your plan. This is Your purpose.
It’s all worship. Or you can say, “You are almighty, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, knowing everything, immutable, unchanging, perfect, holy, loving, gracious, merciful and just recite the attributes of God. That’s what worship does. And thank God for all that He is.
So worship is not about where you are or the conditions around you. Worship is about what you know to be true about God, who He is, what He has done. It is a crippled kind of worship, I think, that so many people experience because they go to a meeting, they have only a superficial understanding of divine things. I call it recreational worship. People have maybe a simple understanding that Jesus died for them and little else. The great deep realities of the nature of God are withheld from them because they might be offended by some of His attributes. The great history of what God has done both in mercy and in judgment is withheld from them. "Well we don't need to teach our students that these days." (heard that before?) And so, worship no matter how loud the music is and no matter how rhythmical it is and no matter how seductive it is to our emotions is thin and superficial and empty because it’s uninformed. An uninformed person who knows only a very little bit about God could sit in the middle of the most magnificent music and it cannot lift him above his knowledge. And a believer whose mind and soul is flooded with the true knowledge of God, who He is and what He has done, can sit alone in the middle of a busy intersection and worship God, hearing only cars and buses and trucks passing by. This brings tears to my eyes every time I think of the depth of the worship He longs from us.
Lord, I ask today that you would make Yourself known to your people. That we would be worshipers in spirit and in truth. That we would be informed worshipers. And we would ascribe to you the honor that is due Your Name. Amen.
Part 3 coming soon!
pcraig
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