Sermon Notes, September 18, 2016
“Here I Am to Worship”
Steve W. Reeves
INTRODUCTION:
A.
There is a big difference between “going to church” and worshipping God.
1. The word, “church,” in Greek was
“ecclesia,” meaning, “an assembly.” It was not a
religious word.
2. People assemble for many reasons.
a. Last Saturday (September 10, 2016) the
largest crowd ever assembled to watch
a college football game met at the
Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee.
Over 150,000 people attended the
“Battle of Bristol” between the University of
Tennessee and Virginia Tech.
b. People assemble for various reasons
such as athletic events, political rallies,
lectures, weddings and funerals.
B. Why
have we assembled here today?
1. To be completely honest some of you
would say you are here because someone
made you come.
2. Some of you might say that you are here
to visit with your friends.
3. Some might say you have come to hear
preaching or to listen to singing. Some
would say you have come to observe the
Lord’s Supper.
4. My hope is that all of us might be able
to say, “Here I am to worship.”
I. WHAT IS WORSHIP?
A. As we embark on a journey that I hope
will lead us to a deeper understanding
of
God and our worship of Him it is
important for us to ask the question, “What is
worship?” People in our culture have so
many different ideas regarding worship.
B. Here are some definitions given by
various spiritual leaders through the years.
1. William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury
from 1942-44 gave this definition
of worship. “Worship is the
submission of all of our nature to God. It is the
quickening of conscience by His
holiness, Nourishment of mind by His truth,
Purifying of imagination by His
beauty, Opening of the heart to His love, And
submission of will to his purpose. And
all this gathered up in adoration is the
greatest of human expressions of
which we are capable.”
2. Harold Best, in his book Music Through
the Eyes of Faith, defines worship as
“acknowledging that someone or
something else is greater – worth more – and
by consequence, to be obeyed,
feared, and adored.”
3. Warren Wiersbee in, Real Worship
wrote, “Worship is the believer’s response of
all that they are – mind, emotions,
will, body – to what God is and says and does”
4. David Peterson in Engaging God,
said, “Worship of the living and true God is
essentially an engagement with him
on the terms that he proposes and in the
way that he alone makes possible.”
C. Our English word, “worship” is derived
from an Anglo-Saxon word, “worth-ship.”
Which mean to ascribe honor and praise.
The words “worthy” and “worthwhile” are
related to this word.
D. In the Bible the word “worship” occurs
198 times. It is translated from several
Hebrew and Greek words. There are two
primary thoughts attached to these words.
1. The first is the attitude of bowing down
before and kissing the hand as an act of
adoration and submission.
2. The second is an act of service
toward the one we worship.
3. Worship involves two things –
attitude and action. Worship affects the entire
person.
a. One of the first recorded
instances of worship in the Bible is in Genesis 4
where Cain and Able offered
sacrifices to God. Able’s sacrifice from
his flock
was acceptable. Cain’s sacrifice
from his harvest was not. As the story plays
out you can see that Cain was
deficient in both his attitude and his actions.
Able approached God in faith
(Heb.11: 4) the right attitude and with the right
action.
b. See Matthew 4:10 and Deuteronomy6
10:12; 11:13.
II. WHAT DID JESUS SAY?
A. Isn’t it amazing how some of the
greatest teachings from Scripture occur in the
most unlikely places.
1. This is the case with Jesus’
instruction on worship which occurs near the end of
his conversation with a woman of
Samaria in John 4.
2. The 3rd and 4th
chapters of John are a continuous story of Jesus’ conversation
with two individuals from very
different backgrounds.
a. In John 3 Jesus told Nicodemus, a
Pharisee, that he must be born again of
the water and the Spirit. It is
in this conversation that we find the familiar verse,
“For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that
whosoever believes in Him shall
not perish but have eternal life.”
b. In John 4 Jesus had a
conversation with a Samaritan woman. After they had
talked together Jesus told her
to go get her husband. She replied that she had
no husband and Jesus said,
“you’re right! You’ve had five husbands and the
man you are with now is not your
husband.” We will join their
conversation in
verse 19.
B. Notice the woman’s question. After
deciding that Jesus must be a prophet she
tries to steer the conversation away
from herself with a question about worship.
1. The Samaritans worshipped at Mount
Gerizim. The Jews worshipped in
Jerusalem. Who was right?
2. Isn’t it amazing how we change the
subject when our comfort zone is invaded?
C. The answer Jesus gave tells us two
important things about worship.
1. The place is not the issue. This was
a radical departure from the teachings of
both Samaritans and Jews. There had
always been a place for worship whether
it had been Gilgal, Shechem, Bethel or
Jerusalem.
2. The issue is knowledge and attitude.
a. In verse 22 Jesus said, “You
worship what you do not know; we worship what
we know, for salvation is from
the Jews.”
b. In verse 24, Jesus said, “God is
spirit, and those who worship Him must
worship in spirit and truth for
such people the Father seeks to be His
worshipers.”
c. Jesus was saying that worship is
a matter of the heart and mind. It involves the
spirit and the intellect.
III. FOUNDATIONAL CONCEPTS OF WORSHIP
A. There are many benefits we receive when
we worship.
1. There is a spirit of unity and
community as we participate in worship.
2. We teach and admonish one another as
we sing.
3. We share our sorrows and burdens with
one another as we pray.
4. We proclaim a message of faith and
conviction through our participation.
B. There are some foundational principles
we must always remember.
1. Worship is about God – not us.
a. Worship is our praise and
adoration to God for who He is and what He has
done. The Hebrew word, “Hallel”
means, “to praise.” When added to the
covenant name for God, YAHWEH,
it forms the familiar, “Hallelujah!” (Praise
YAHWEH).
b. A good example of praising God
for who He is and what He has done is found
in Psalm 136 where the Psalmist
intersperses reasons why God is worthy of
praise with the phrase, “For His
lovingkindness is everlasting.” It is all about
praising God.
c When I am more concerned about
personal preferences than I am about
praising God I have lost the proper focus of
worship.
2.
There is an inseparable link between my public worship and my private life.
a. How often do we hear political
figures declare what they do in in private does
not matter.
b. The prophets of the Old Testament
often spoke of people who practiced
religious rituals but did not
practice love, justice and mercy in their own lives.
c. You cannot sow a crop of wild oats all
week long and then come to church and
pray for a crop failure.
3. Worship is our response to God’s
holiness (meaning “separate,” “apart,”
“uncommon”).
a. This response was pictured by
Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah 6:1-9 and the cry of the
Seraphim in vs. 3 - “Holy, Holy,
Holy, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is
full of His glory.”
b. In Hebrews 12:2 - 298 the writer
said, “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom
which cannot be shaken, let us show
gratitude, by which we may offer to God
an acceptable service with
reverence and awe; 29 for our God is a consuming
fire.”
c. In Revelation 4:8-11 God is
worshipped with these words, “Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God Almighty, who was,
and is, and is to come.”
C.
Worship provides us with the opportunity to offer ourselves to God.
1. In Romans 12:2 Paul says that as we
live our lives unconfirmed to the world
proving the will of God we are offering Him
our spiritual sacrifice.
2. Hebrews 3:15-16 speaks of offering up
sacrifice of praise – the fruit of our lips,
sharing what we have for such sacrifice is
pleasing to God.
CONCLUSION:
A. Do
you remember the scene in the movie, The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy, the
Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion have
come to the Emerald city and enter into
the room where they meet the wizard? With
the amplified voice, the fire and smoke
the created image demanded, “why have you
come?”
1. You and I are not in the presence of a
made up image. We are in the presence of
the God of the universe.
2. He wants to know, “Why are you here?” My
prayer is that each of us might reply,
“Here I am to worship.”
B. God
invites you to come to Him today. He loves you more than you can imagine and
wants to have a relationship with You. He sent His Son, Jesus, to take the guilt of your
sin to the cross and raised Him up on the first day of the week. Come to Him today,
wants to have a relationship with You. He sent His Son, Jesus, to take the guilt of your
sin to the cross and raised Him up on the first day of the week. Come to Him today,
