The Way We Worship

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I used to have this dog named Max, and he did a weird thing. I’ve never had any other dog that I’ve, maybe it’s not that uncommon, but I’ve never had any other dog do it. From the time he was a puppy, when I would come into the room, when I’d walk into the house, he would keep his back legs straight, and he would stretch out and put his front legs out in front of him like he’s stretching.

But his posture, and he’d hold it there until I’d say something to him, and it looked like he was bowing to me.

and it always made me a little uncomfortable because I told my mother I said people are going to think I’ve trained this dog to worship me because it looked like what he was doing like I don’t know how to get this dog to stop this he did it let’s see I had that dog for probably 14 years and at the end of his life he could barely move but he’d still stretch out and bow and and I always felt it looked like he was he was worshiping me but over time I realized he really was a pretty picture of what it means for us to worship because not only did he adopt this this posture of bowing but he would follow me from room to room all he wanted to know was what I was doing and could he be with me he would not give me a moment’s peace as a matter of fact for that it’s just all sorts of things like that but he he would be so excited to see me and I know a lot of that’s just normal dog stuff but I heard a preacher one time talk about dog and cat theology and the way we deal with God and they said, dogs look at us and say, you feed me, you pet me, you take care of me, you must be a God.

And cats say, you feed me, you pet me, you take care of me, I must be a God. Right? Dogs can be a fairly this desire to orient your entire life around this person.

It’s a pretty good picture of how we’re supposed to interact with God. King David called the people of Jerusalem to worship God on an occasion when he brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. And that may not seem like a big deal to us.

We think, well, the Ark of the Covenant belonged in Jerusalem. That’s where it’s supposed to be. Why is that such a big deal?

The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God among Israel in the Old Testament. And at the point just leading up to this, it had been captured in battle by the Philistines, the arch enemies of Israel, and had been carried off to a pagan temple, where it caused all sorts of havoc in the pagan temple. But when the Philistines got fed up with this and recognized the power of God, they sent it back.

And when David brought the Ark of the Covenant up to Jerusalem, he said it was time for the people of Israel to worship, to worship God. and first chronicles tells about how David led them in this worship and some of the things that David taught them and over the next few weeks I want us to to spend some time studying what it means to worship God and this is not the only place we could have started this is not even the only place in scripture that deals with the topic we’re going to talk about today but as I read it as I became familiar with it again this week I thought it’s a pretty good place to start talking about what God deserves. And so this morning, we’re going to be in 1 Chronicles chapter 16.

It outlines a song that was later featured in Psalm 72, Psalm 96, Psalm 105, Psalm 106. We’re going to look at part of it today, a section that later became part of Psalm 96. But it’s in 1 Chronicles 16.

It says, David wrote this song in praise to the Lord and in order to teach the people what they were supposed to do in worshiping God, and then he hands it to the musicians as they were prepared there to dedicate the ark there in the tabernacle in Jerusalem. So if you have your Bibles, turn with me to 1 Chronicles chapter 16. It’s about a third of the way through your Bible.

If you can’t find 1 Chronicles this morning, it will be on the screen. And if you’re new here with us, we do like to stand. If you’re able to without too much trouble, as we read from God’s Word together, just in honor of the word that he’s given us.

So if you’re able to stand with us. We’re going to look starting, we don’t have time this morning to go through the entire thing, and really it repeats a lot of the same ideas. And so I want us just to focus in this morning on verses 23 through 33.

It says, Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all peoples.

For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised. He is also to be feared above all gods, for all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before him.

Strength and gladness are in his place. Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Give to the Lord glory and strength.

Give to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come before him. O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Tremble before him all the earth. The world also is firmly established. it shall not be moved.

Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad, and let them say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Let the sea roar in all its fullness. Let the field rejoice in all that is in it.

Then the trees of the woods shall rejoice before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth. And you may be seated. One of the things that David kind of hits on here as he’s prepared this song for this time of worship, one of the things we need to understand, one of the deals with here is that worship is the way we live our lives before the Lord.

If you and I, if we start to talk about worship, a lot of times what we’re talking about is what we just did here in this room, where we come together on Sundays and the praise team gets up here and the praise band gets up here and Christy gets up here and leads and we sing about four songs and a special and we call that worship. Now don’t get me wrong, that is worship in the sense that it’s part of what it means to worship. But that’s not all that worship is.

As a matter of fact, worship is not even just music. We can worship when we leave here. Charlie and Jojo.

I don’t know where I was going with that. My Charlie and Jojo. Charlie and Jojo have been walking around the house all week singing a C.

C. Winan song. I didn’t even know they knew, but they’re singing, He’s Never Lost a Battle.

He’s Never Lost a Battle. And they’re worshiping in song. We can walk out of this place and we can worship and song, but folks, worship is more than song even outside of this room.

Worship is the way that we live our lives before the Lord. And I realize the irony of telling you this out of a verse where he’s telling them to sing. And by the way, it’s a song that he’s using to teach them.

But even in this song, and even as he’s telling the people of Israel to sing, he makes the case that there’s more to it than just the songs we sing, and more than just when we gather. He says in verses 23 and 24 here, sing to the Lord all the earth, proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day, declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all people. So it’s not, it can be music, but it’s not just music.

It can be when we gather together as a church, just like when they would gather together at the tabernacle, but it’s not just when we gather together at the church or when they gathered at the tabernacle. All of that is fine, all of that is great, but we just need to broaden our understanding of what worship is. There are several biblical words that are translated as worship.

And I sat down recently and tried to do a study over those words. And the various shades of meaning in the Greek and Hebrew, and I am not, I’ve got to find a better word than expert, because every time I say I’m not an expert, Brother Tommy says something to me about being a has-been drip under pressure or something like that. So I’ve got to find a better word.

I am not, oh good heavens, I can’t think of another word. My vocabulary has failed me. I don’t know all the things about Greek or Hebrew, all right?

As a matter of fact, what I know about Greek and Hebrew could probably fill a shoebox. But I sat down and tried to work through some of the shades of meaning in these words. And even though there’s some differences and some overlap between them, they’re really, most of them, not all that much different because they all have some form of the idea of bowing or showing reverence.

All the words that you see translated as worship fall somewhere on that spectrum of either literal bowing or showing reverence to somebody in some way. And even here in the Old Testament, starting at the Old Testament and then going on to us today, the Bible has taught us that worship is something God’s people are supposed to do at all times and all places. Not just at the temple, not just at the tabernacle, not just at the church, not just during an organized service, not even just when we’re opening our mouths to sing, but it’s something we are supposed to do at all times in all places.

And being obedient to God, by the way, you may take from that, well, then why do I need to come to church at all? If I’m supposed to worship everywhere and all the time, why do I need to be here. Because if our worship to God is done by demonstrating obedience to Him, if it’s done by living a life that is in reverence and submission to Him, then we’re going to want to be obedient to Him, and He tells us that we’re supposed to gather together.

It’s not important for you to be here this morning because God takes attendance, right? And you’ve got to have so many attendances here so you can pass the final exam. That’s not how this works.

God put us together so that we can learn from one another so that we can study His Word together, so that we can worship together, so that we can grow together. It can be done in isolation, but it is so much harder. There are people today all over the world that have no choice but to serve God in isolation.

There are people in prison all over this world for no crime other than worshiping Jesus Christ, and they have no choice but to worship him in isolation, maybe even silently in a prison cell. Or maybe they live in a place where there just aren’t any other believers within a convenient distance. And I think they would be the first to tell us it is much harder to do separated from one another.

And so God puts us together to worship together because we need each other. So don’t look at the fact that we’re supposed to worship at all times and in all places as an excuse for us not to come together. It’s good for us.

There have been times in the last few years where we’ve had to cancel for a couple of weeks because of ice storms and things like that. And my wife can tell you, when we haven’t gathered together, I get cranky. Amen?

Because there’s something about us coming and worshiping together that’s good for us. But we can’t just do one and not the other. We shouldn’t just worship here, and we shouldn’t just worship out there.

Worship is something that we do every day. He says they are supposed to continually recognize God for who He is and respond appropriately. That’s what worship is.

Recognizing God for who He is and responding appropriately. Our worship is responding to who He is. As a matter of fact, I believe the old English word that we get worship from is worth-ship.

That we are ascribing to God the worth that He has. That we look at God and see how mighty, how powerful, how valuable He is, and we recognize that. We respond to it.

That’s what we’re doing when we worship. It’s important to understand that because we say, well, if it’s not just the music, then what is it? It’s anything that you and I are doing that is recognizing for God, recognizing God for who He is and responding to that the way we ought to.

And it’s important to understand responding the way we ought to, because sometimes we look at God, we see Him for who He is, and we say, no, I want no part of that. I want to do what I want to do instead. That’s not worship.

But worship is saying He is the God of the universe and I’m going to act like it. And trying to remember that as we go through daily life. Israel’s told here in verse 23, proclaim the good news of his salvation.

In other words, they’re supposed to remember who he is and they’re supposed to talk about his goodness. When are they supposed to do this? Every day.

It says in verse 23 from day to day. Where are they supposed to do it? Everywhere.

It says, declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all people. Not only are they supposed to do it at home, not only are they do it in the temple and in the tabernacle, they’re supposed to go out among the pagans and lift up the name of their God. They’re supposed to go out to people who don’t believe and tell how great God is.

Doesn’t mean we have to always be obnoxious about it, but a story was told this week at the Bible conference about a man who just would be on the job site every day, and he’d just whistle hymns while he was there, and talking about the impact that that had on other people. As we read this and pay attention to what David’s telling them, worship is a way of life, And you can worship in your everyday life. As a matter of fact, if you’re approaching life from the right perspective, which is recognizing God for who He is and what He’s done, then everything you do in life can be an act of worship.

When you go to your job, it can be an act of worship. You say, well, I hate my job, and I’m not too crazy about my boss either. All right, well, the New Testament talks about doing things as unto the Lord.

So when you’re mopping floors, you mop the floors like the Lord has asked you to mop those floors. And if you’re doing it because you want to bring glory to Him, then I submit to you, mopping floors can be an act of worship. Taking care of your kids is an act of worship.

As a matter of fact, molding them to be the people they need to be and teaching them what it means to follow Christ, I can’t think of a more important act of worship off the top of my head. And I started thinking this this week because I was reading some things by an early Christian writer who was famed as one of the greatest preachers of his day. And he was talking about how preaching is an act of worship.

He talked about his perspective being, I don’t go in there to earn their applause. I don’t go in there to tell them what I even think they need to hear from God’s Word. I go and preach God’s Word because as I proclaim His truth, I’m bringing glory to Him whether anybody responds or not.

He said, even that is just an act of worship. And I thought, well, there’s a good idea. It’s an act of worship.

Even our priorities, even things that we’re not planning on, they can be acts of worship. I have so many things on my to-do list that if, what is it the old saying, God put me here on earth to accomplish a certain number of things and I’m so far behind I will never die. I kind of feel that way.

Some of you have been to my house and I welcome you to the Museum of Half-Finished Projects. I mean, our house is a mess. Not just kid mess, but like there’s baseboards missing and I’m working on it.

trying to get the yard cleaned up too. It’s been a multi-year process. And I get so fixated.

And that’s not even counting what I do for my job here. And so I wake up every morning with this to-do list of like red lights flashing in my brain of all the things that not only do I have to do today, but the things that I need to catch up on from yesterday. And it never fails.

I come home, I think I’ve got time to do this when I get home. Maybe I can get the bathroom painted and this and then a child needs to study for spelling. And I think, really God?

The words haven’t changed. I know they’ve seen these words, but I’ve got to help them. You know what?

I need to change my perspective. That my goal is not to get through a certain number of things on my to-do list. My goal is to honor God in everything that I’m doing. And if that means that I get the kitchen remodel finished so that my wife recognizes in some small way that I love her and I’m trying to serve her as Christ served the church, then fixing that kitchen can be an act of worship.

Because if I’m doing it to bring honor to God for what He’s given me in life, then it can be an act of worship. If it means putting my entire to-do list aside because my wife or my children need something, then I need to do that with a happy heart and recognize that God has given them to me as my first ministry, and that I’m glorifying Him by taking care of what He’s given me to do. And I’m not telling you this because I’ve got this all down perfectly.

I’m telling you this because I struggle with it, and I’m going to need these words to come back and bite me this week when I start having a bad attitude about my to-do list, right? Because that always happens. Every Sunday I tell you all things, and then I have to do them, right?

And it’s not fun. It’s much more fun to just tell you things than to have to actually go out and do them. But worship is a way of life.

If we just understand that the things that God has given us, the good things, the not-so-fun things that He’s given us to take care of for His glory, then we recognize that by doing them to the best of our ability, we are bringing honor and bringing glory to the God who made us, and it changes our perspective on the stuff we’ve got to do. And suddenly the mundane tasks, the stuff we’ve just got to get through, takes on an eternal significance. In order to do this, though, we have to remember who He is and what He deserves.

That’s key to all of this, keeping God at the forefront of our mind. It doesn’t just work of saying, oh, this stuff is all important, It all serves a purpose. I’m on a mission from God.

It does not work if we try to short-circuit the process and not remember who He is and what He deserves. The reason why mopping the floors can be an act of worship is because we’ve been given that opportunity by a God who deserves to be worshipped in all that we say and do. We serve a God who deserves to be glorified when people look at us and say, how can you be so happy mopping floors?

And we say, today is the day the Lord has made. Or something along those lines. We tell them that we have a joy in Christ. And he gets the glory from the attitude that we have mopping the floors.

But it all starts with remembering who he is and what he deserves. You say, where do you get that? It’s all through this song David has written.

David describes God in verse 25. He says, the Lord is great. That word great is gadol.

It’s a word for greatness that describes something that’s worthy of boasting about. the Lord is worth bragging about, he says. He says in verse 26 that he’s the creator of all things.

Who is he? He’s the creator of everything. All the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

He’s talking about all these gods that all these other nations serve. He says they are just idols. They were created by man, but these gods were created by men, but this God created man.

These idols can’t do a thing. They’re just lumps of stone. They’re just wood.

All these things that people serve are lifeless and powerless, but the God we serve, He created us. The Apostle Paul talks about it with all these idols that the Athenians worship being powerless, and he said our God is not worshipped with human hands as though He needed anything from us. Our God is the Creator.

He doesn’t need a thing from us, but He deserves all the glory we could ever give Him, because He is the Creator, because He is the reason that all of this exists. He is the reason that you and I exist. He’s the reason for every heartbeat, every breath that we draw. He tells us in verse 29 that God is utterly holy.

He is without blemish. He’s without imperfection. And that’s why he says in verse 29, O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

That when we recognize God for who He is, His sinlessness, His perfection, that He is just, we look at all of our imperfections, we look at all of our blemishes, all of our shortcomings, and God has none of them. just by His very nature, God is separate from us. And to understand the holiness of God is to witness something beautiful and unparalleled in all of the universe.

And so He says, worship God in the beauty of His holiness. He says He’s the sovereign ruler of all things, verse 31. Let them say among the nations, the Lord reigns.

That He looks around at all these gods that are worshipped. He looks around at all these kings and earthly authorities that are served. And He says, let them say the Lord reigns.

This world is operated by some pretty powerful people. There are some pretty powerful people in government, in finance, in military circles, people that can accomplish a lot and people that think they have a lot of power. But the Bible says that God holds the hearts of kings in the palms of his hand.

The Bible says that God has determined the borders of empires. God is orchestrating the nations of the earth as they rise and fall like pawns on a chess board so that his plan is worked out. God is the God we serve is the sovereign ruler of all things and he’s the righteous judge of mankind.

He says in verse 33, he is coming to judge the earth. He is coming and we will have to answer to him for every wrong. He will set all things to right.

And there’s nobody on earth powerful enough that it’s going to rescue them from his judgment, that it’s going to exempt them from his judgment. Nobody’s going to be able to say, well, I’m too big for. .

. We talked about this Friday night with the Tower of Babel story. I was in the back hallway playing build a builder, playing build or no build, as they opened these cases to build a Tower of Babel out of Legos.

And I told them the story about how the Tower of Babel was built because God had told people to disperse all over the world, enjoy all of his creation. And they said, no, we want to stay here. And we want to build a tower to show that we’re big and strong and don’t have to listen to God.

They thought they could make themselves strong enough that they didn’t have to do what God said, and God looked at it and said, well, that’s cute. Pretty tough to build your tower when you can’t understand each other. Boom.

See, we may set up these little kingdoms for ourselves here on earth and think we’re big and strong, but in the face of the righteous judge of mankind, nobody can stand. And so that’s not all of the attributes of God, but those are some that David deals with here in this chapter that we need to understand that the God we worship is by his very nature worthy of worship. We worship him because he’s worthy.

Because of who he is, he deserves to be praised. Verse 25 calls us to praise him. That word there in Hebrew means to shine.

We are supposed to let God’s glory shine through us, through our attitudes, through the choices we make, through the truths that we embrace. We’re supposed to live in such a way that God’s glory is put on display. Not our glory, not our goodness, but His glory is put on display.

He deserves to be praised. Verse 25 tells us, He deserves to be feared above all gods. That word fear, we have softened the blow of it to mean reverence.

And there’s some of that involved too, but that word in Hebrew has a much broader meaning. It means to be terrified. I love my parents.

I’ve always loved my parents. I knew my parents loved me. And I have a good relationship with my parents.

But let me tell you, there were times I was terrified of my dad. Not in an abusive way, right? But mom would say, wait until your father gets home.

She’d handle it sometimes, but if I really got out of line, wait until your father gets home, oh, please don’t let daddy come home. Because I knew there were questions that I was not going to want to answer. And I knew there was a belt I wasn’t going to want to face.

right? And by the way, it wasn’t even just the belt. Sometimes it was the talk about, I’m really not happy with the way you’re acting, the sting of him feeling disappointed.

There was some legitimate fear. Not like I was afraid he was going to destroy me, but there was a healthy, reverential, respectful fear. And we as God’s people, if you belong to Jesus Christ, you don’t have to live in fear that he’s going to destroy you.

But at the same time, let’s not default to, oh yeah, he’s the man upstairs. Oh, no. I remember years ago walking around the campus at OU and people were wearing shirts that said, Jesus is my homeboy. I appreciate the sentiment, but no. No, he’s the God of the universe.

And he deserves that reverential fear. And he calls us. He calls us to come boldly before the throne of grace.

But let’s not forget who we’re dealing with. He deserves to receive all the glory that is due his name in verse 29. Every scrap of glory we could ever give him.

Anything, there is nothing that you or I could do to bring glory to God that he does not deserve. There’s no point where you can go, well, I’ve done enough. That’s all he deserves.

Can’t get there. Can’t get there from here. If there’s something we could theoretically do to bring glory to God, he deserves it.

Every bit of glory that’s due to his name. And verse 29 says he deserves to receive offerings from his people. And if you’re thinking, well, there they go at church talking about money.

That’s not what I’m talking about. Because I recall a few weeks ago we looked at Romans chapter 12 that talked about offering our lives, ourselves, as a living sacrifice. God’s not just looking to worm his way into your checkbook.

God wants all of you. God wants your whole being to be devoted to him. You see, all the other gods of all the other nations in antiquity, they were fine with being worshipped alongside other gods.

Nobody cared who you worshipped as long as you were willing to worship whoever. As a matter of fact, the Romans didn’t mind that the Christians or the Jews before them, that they only worship, they didn’t mind that they worshiped a different God. They minded that they worshiped only that God.

The Romans wouldn’t necessarily have persecuted the Christians just for worshiping Jesus. There’s the problem of saying, oh, we worship only Jesus. We don’t worship all these other gods.

You see, it was expected that your worship was going to be divided between multiple gods. But the God of the Bible stands alone saying, no, I don’t want percent of your heart. I don’t want 95 percent of your devotion.

I want all or nothing, and preferably all. But yes, in the Old Testament, they’re talking about bringing offerings of animals on the altar. They’re talking about food and drink offerings.

They’re talking about incense. They may be talking about money for the temple. But more than anything, God said, I desire obedience rather than sacrifice.

He wants our lives yielded up in submission to Him. And not only does He want it, He deserves it. Again, there’s nothing I can do to honor him that he does not deserve.

And so we treat all of life, if we live it in submission to God, recognizing who he is and what he’s done, then everything in life can be an act of worship. And it should be. The key is remembering who he is and what he’s done.

And you can count up all your blessings and say he deserves to be worshipped for those things, and that’s true. We could all make a list of all the things that God has done for us, and he deserves worship for those things. But if God had never done anything else, if God had never done anything for us, he would still deserve worship for who he is.

But of all the things that he’s done that he deserves our worship for, none is greater than the gift he gave us of sending Jesus Christ so that we could be forgiven and so that we could have a relationship with him. Our sin had separated us from God. Our disobedience had come between us and him.

And you and I were destined not only to be separated from God here in this life, but we were destined to be separated from God for all eternity. And there’s nothing that you and I can do that’s right, that’s good, that will erase the wrong that we’ve done. I mean, we could worship Him, but it wouldn’t erase the wrong that we’ve done.

It wouldn’t pay for the wrong that we’ve done. A sacrifice was needed. An offering was needed.

And Jesus Christ, God the Son, came in human flesh. And He took responsibility for my sin and for yours. When He went to the cross, He took responsibility for our sin.

The Father put it on His account. And Jesus Christ was nailed there on the cross to shed his blood and die to pay for my sin and to pay for your sin so that it could be forgiven. God did not owe us that.

God did that because he is a God of love, because he is a God of grace and mercy. It goes back to who he is. God didn’t owe us that.

And this morning, even if he’d never done anything else for you, you can make the list of all the things he’s done for you that he deserves your praise and your worship for. But even if he had never done anything else, he deserves your worship because he paid the ultimate price for your sin so that you could have peace with the Father, so that you could have eternal life.