The Discipline of Worship

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Psalm chapter 63 this morning. Psalm chapter 63. I’ve been talking to you about spiritual disciplines that will help grow your walk with Christ, that will help you grow spiritually.

And one of the ones that’s been most difficult, one of the ones that’s been most difficult for me to teach on and to practice in my Christian life is the discipline of worship. And that’s because we have such a flawed idea of what worship is. worship, when we hear the word worship, even though we probably, you probably know, it’s not that.

When we hear the word worship, our mind goes to Sunday morning. Well, Brother Ken just led us in, the music time. And I’m not saying that’s not worship, but that’s a flawed idea of worship because it’s an incomplete idea of worship.

When we come together on Sundays and we worship together, it’s supposed to be our corporate worship. it’s supposed to be our expression together of what’s been taking place throughout the week and if I come in on Sunday morning expecting to worship God and I have not been worshiping God throughout the whole week then my worship is going to be dry and flat and I’m going to walk out there thinking well that music director that music program that’s just they did not lead in good worship the problem is not with the worship leader the problem is not with the worship program the problem is that I have not been worshiping God all week, and so I came in unprepared to worship God with my brothers and sisters. Because a lot of times we do fall back into that default mindset, I know I do, of thinking that worship is our time together on Sunday mornings, and it’s about music.

And that’s what worship is. We come in, we sing some songs, and we hear some music, and it sounds good, and maybe somebody sings a special that blesses your heart like that song you just shared a minute ago. And that’s worship.

But folks, that’s just a part of worship. And that’s where a lot of people have gotten off base. Oh, I can’t go to that church because I don’t like the worship.

I just don’t feel like I worshipped there. It’s a me problem, not a church problem. Now, I grew up in a church with blended worship services where there’s a little bit of the hymns, a little bit of praise choruses, and, you know, most people were happy with that.

That kind of fits my preferences, honestly, when it comes to what my preferences are. A little middle of the road. And I remember years ago visiting Charles Church before, I don’t think you were even going there yet, but the church that she came from when we got married.

Going and visiting, and they had the drums, and they had the lights, and I remember thinking, oh my goodness, this is uncomfortable, because it was just too, and I thought, how do people worship here? But there were people worshiping God, because there were people there expressing their praises to God, and grateful for who He was, and I’ve seen others where I’ve, you know, others come into a church that I’ve pastored where it’s been more traditional. Every church I’ve ever pastored has been more traditional in its worship service. and people come in, especially younger people, and think, well, I can’t worship here.

It’s just hymns. If you walk in to the worship and you think it’s about you and your preferences and what I get out of it, then it’s not worship. See, we have all these.

That’s why I’m saying that worship is one of the hardest spiritual disciplines when it should be one of the simplest. It’s one of the hardest spiritual disciplines because we get all confused about what it is and what it isn’t. And I’m not saying that I would be comfortable if we changed it to a rap service or a hip-hop worship service. Do they have those?

I guess they do. That would be out of my comfort zone, okay? Honestly.

But I’ve gotten to the point where really I don’t care about the music. If it’s all hymns, great. When I survey the wondrous cross, you want to talk about a depth of understanding of who Jesus Christ is, you look at some of these hymns.

But you go to some of the churches where they have the praise choruses and you talk about just understanding the beauty of God and his grace and what he’s done for you and longing for a connection with him, I really don’t care about that. And I hope you all aren’t mad at me for that. He’s trying to take us into contemporary.

No, I’m not because I don’t care. Worship is not about the style of music. And because worship is not about the style of music because it’s really not about what we come here together to do.

on Sunday morning. What we come here to do on Sunday morning is an outgrowth. Is an expression of what should have been taking place in our lives throughout the week.

And if I have worshipped God if I have worshipped God in spirit and in truth for six days I can walk in here and worship God together with you regardless of what songs Brother Ken picks. If I haven’t been worshiping God, if I’ve gone through the last six days without giving God a second thought, then it’s not going to matter whether the music touches my heart or not. It’s not going to matter whether it’s my preference or not.

It’s not going to matter if He is on fire this morning or not. My worship is going to fall flat because worship is like a muscle. You can’t exercise it just once a week and expect it to work right.

So worship is more than music. Worship is more than what we just do here together on a Sunday morning. There’s more to worship than these things.

And that makes it hard for us to understand because we want to look at worship and say, we like our lives to be in these neat little boxes that we can categorize and say, oh, that’s worship. Oh, that’s service. Oh, that’s.

. . So we can check it off and say we’ve done it.

And yet worship isn’t one of those things we can ever check off and say, I’m done. Oh, I’ve worshipped. I’ve worshipped today.

Because it’s supposed to be an ongoing thing. It’s supposed to be a daily thing. And we need worship.

Do you realize that you are designed to worship? Did you realize that? You’re designed to worship.

We look at people around us and we wonder why the teenage girls go nuts about these boy bands with the weird haircuts. And they have their posters up on the walls and they know all their songs. And we think it’s crazy?

Well, yeah, it is crazy because what a thing to pick to worship. But it’s just our natural inclination. We are designed to worship something.

And it’s why people wear the jerseys of their favorite athletes. And I’m not saying that you’re worshiping athletes if you do that. But some people are just nuts over their favorite sports teams. and their favorite, I mean, I love OU football, and I’ll scream my heart out.

I couldn’t name one of the players to save my life. I don’t follow everything they do, and I don’t have their poster up in my room. But people worship sports.

People worship politicians. Oh, my goodness. My guy can do no wrong, or my lady, or whoever it is.

They can do no wrong, and I will defend them to the death because they are the best thing ever. it seems so crazy but it’s part of who we are it’s part of how we’re designed we are designed to worship we will worship something we are designed to worship God think back to the Garden of Eden they had a regular ongoing walk with God where they spent time with Him they were in the habit of walking together in the garden what did God’s body look like? I have no idea, ask somebody else but they would walk together in the garden And they had this closeness and they had this relationship of love with God.

And they would worship him. And it was just part of, it’s part of who we are. It’s part of what we’re designed to do.

You know, vacuum cleaners are designed to suck up messes. Stoves are designed to cook food. We are designed to worship.

It’s not incidental to who we are. It’s at the very core of who we are. We’re designed to worship something.

So the problem is when we take God away from that and we don’t worship God, we’re going to end up worshiping something else by default. I’ll tell you this, even atheists worship something. I don’t know what it is because it’s different for every one of them.

But even an atheist who doesn’t believe in God still worships. They may worship their own intellect. They may worship their wealth.

I don’t know, whatever it is, they may worship. But we all are designed to worship, and we will worship something. And if it’s not God, it’s going to be something that’s not God.

It’s going to be idolatry. And so it’s vitally important for us as believers to make sure that we are routinely, regularly worshiping God. Because if we don’t, something will step into that vacuum.

Something will fill that need for worship that we have. And we will worship something. You know, there are some things that, I mean, I have no inclination to bow down to statues.

I have no inclination to be gaga over sports figures or politics. Well, okay, I’m a little closer on that one. Or singers or any of those things.

But it would become real easy for me if I’m not careful to worship something I’m not supposed to. It would be real easy for me to orient my entire life around my children and my wife and start to worship at the altar of family. And as important as that is, it’s not supposed to occupy the place that belongs only to God.

There are things in my life that it would be easy to worship. We all have something that we are inclined to worship if we are not deliberately, on purpose, worshiping the living God. And this worship that we give is not an activity, it’s not an action, it’s a lifestyle.

It’s something ongoing. As we’re going to see in Psalm chapter 63, it’s a lifestyle where we acknowledge our submission toward God, our reliance on Him, and our love for Him, not just in the words we say, not in the rituals we perform once or twice a week, but in the way we live our lives, we worship God. Now yes, we can come together and we can sing songs.

We can sing songs to God on our own, and those things are an outgrowth of worship. But that’s not all worship is. They’re a part of this bigger idea of worship.

So Psalm chapter 63 says in verse 1, O God, thou art my God. This is King David speaking. He says, O God, thou art my God.

Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. And so what he says is he’s talking about the way he desires to worship God and be in his presence.

And this desire is so strong that it’s the first thing he thinks of in the morning. When you realize what you think of first thing in the morning, it’s probably going to be a good indication of one of the things that’s very important to you. When my alarm goes off in the morning, first thing, whatever time it goes off.

When my alarm goes off first thing in the morning, my first thought usually is I want to sleep longer. Sleep is very important. But once I realize that can’t happen, usually my next thought is what am I going to have for breakfast. Very important.

okay, don’t want to miss a meal. The things that we think about first are usually an indication of what’s important. You know, eventually we go beyond that, and it’s a thought of, okay, I need to make sure Benjamin’s out of bed. I need to get him ready for school, see if Charlie needs any help, what’s on my calendar to do at work today.

Okay, we’re going through the list of these things are important. You know, it’s usually after I’ve gone to bed and I’m almost asleep that I think, I didn’t pay that it. Way down on my list. I mean, they get paid, but it’s way down on my list of priorities.

I’m not waking up thinking, yeah, I want to write a check to OG&E today. It’s not something I love to do, especially during the summer. Amen?

Got the loudest amen out of any portion of this message. The thing we think of when we first get up is the one that’s so important. And David says early, well, I seek thee.

Like when he wakes up, the most important thing on his mind for that day is, I want to be in the presence of God. I want to experience him. My need for him is so strong that it’s like being in the middle of a desert where there’s no water, and he is the water.

I’ve never experienced wandering in the desert, but yesterday we sat out at First Baptist. Benjamin had two soccer games. They’re each an hour long for kindergartners. They’re each an hour long, and we had an hour in between them.

So for the first time, we were sitting out on the soccer field for three hours. And I don’t like to sweat. I don’t like the heat.

I mean, I don’t mind hard work, but I just as soon do it in January. Okay? I don’t mind hard work, but I hate sweating.

And we sat out there, and it was hot, and it was dirty, and it was sweaty, and I wanted nothing more than a big old drink of something cold. Take that and multiply it by ten, and you’ve got what David’s experienced. He’s out in the wilderness of Judah while he’s writing this and saying that his longing for God is the same as his thirst after water in a dry land where there is none.

He has a thirst. He has a longing deep within his soul that only the presence of God can satisfy. And when we realize that all the longings that we have in our lives, all of the things that we’re seeking after, thinking they’re going to make us happy, thinking they’re going to make us feel complete, they’re going to make us feel like our lives are worthwhile, and we try to take our lives and we try to cram it full of all this other stuff, money and relationships and really just literal stuff. And we try to cram it in there and think that that’s going to make us feel complete.

What we’re trying to do is satisfy a longing that only God can fill, that only the presence of God can fill. And so he realized there’s this longing in my heart that only God can fill. There’s this longing to worship God and be in his presence that only worshiping God can satisfy.

I can worship all these other things. I can jump on the bandwagon of all these other things, and it’ll do nothing for me. He said what his longing was in verse 2, to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.

And he goes through and he begins in verses 2 and 3 to list some of God’s attributes. He says, to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary, because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. So some of the things that he points out about God, he’s really here making a list of some of the things that he loves about God.

And this is certainly not a list of all the attributes that there are of God, but the ones that he outlines here, he talks about the power of God. And honestly, we serve a God who is so powerful that he spoke the entire universe into existence. All of the things that we are still, with our best and brightest minds and our great technology, still struggling to understand how they all fit together and how they work together, down to a subatomic level.

And there’s still stuff that we’re discovering every year. God orchestrated all of that. He created all of it, and He spun it all into existence with the words of His men.

That is a power beyond our ability to comprehend. We serve a God whose power is insane how powerful He is. And there’s nothing that is consistent with his nature that’s outside of his ability to do.

That if he wanted to, he could destroy all of it with just the snap of his fingers or the word of his mouth. And he recognizes that he just wants a glimpse of the power of God. And his glory.

His glory. Glory, like worship and like blessing, is another one of those Bible words that’s kind of hard to describe. It’s kind of hard to define.

but just the splendor of seeing Him and who He is and the honor that He deserves. Isaiah saw a vision of God in all of His splendor and all of His glory on His throne. And Isaiah just fell to pieces.

Of course, not literally, but he says, woe is me, I am undone. He just couldn’t stand it to see the glory of God. And David says, I want just a little glimpse of your glory.

When we realize that God is not any of the things that the world makes him out to be. He’s not just, I mean, he is our friend, the Bible says that, but he’s not just our buddy. He’s not just some Santa Claus who grants us wishes.

He’s not the man upstairs. He is the sovereign king of the universe. And there’s not a king, there’s not a ruler in all of his splendor and all of his jewels and all of his riches and all of his power on earth who can compare to the glory of our God.

and David longed to see it and he talks about the holiness of God he says I have seen thee in the sanctuary and this indicates the holiness of God but the perfection of God the sinlessness of God that God is God is altogether different from us he’s separate from us his nature is different from us and he cannot sin he cannot do wrong he cannot act unjustly and His mercy. You know, God like that with His power and His glory and His holiness would be right to look at us in our weakness and our sinfulness and just wipe us off, wipe us out, write us off, be done with us. But then He talks about the mercy of God.

He says your loving kindness is better than life. A lot of people think God is harsh or cruel, but when you look at who He is and who we are in contrast and you realize what I deserve from God what I deserve from God is death and hell and eternal separation from Him. Anything He gives me that is any better than that is not something I am owed.

It’s not something that I earned or deserved. It’s something that He gave out of His own kindness. And when you see what we deserve from God with what we get from God, we realize how merciful and how kind He really is.

Oh, but I’ve suffered this. There have been times in my life that I’ve looked at it and said, God, I don’t understand. Why did this happen to me?

God, why have I lost three children? God, why have I had an unfaithful spouse abandon me? God, why have I had this?

Why have I had that? And when I realized that what I deserved was a whole lot worse than that, and I look at all the blessings He’s given me on top of that, my goodness, there’s nothing to do but fall down in awe at the kindness of a God who gives us far better than we could ever deserve. So David lists some of the attributes that God has and he praises God for them.

He says in verse 4, Thus will I bless thee while I live. I’m going to take the opportunity while there’s life, while there’s breath in this body, and I’m going to bless you. I’m going to praise you.

He says, I will lift up my hands in thy name. He’s surrendering to God and he’s praising Him with every breath that he has. And he’s acknowledging his submission to God and his dependence on him.

He promises now to praise God because he’s worthy. He says, I’m going to praise you from now on. I’m going to submit to you.

I belong to you. You’re in charge here. And I’m going to fall in line.

He says in verse 5, My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips. Okay, so the marrow and fatness things, some translations read rich food. whatever the meaning is here he’s talking about being totally satisfied when you’re starving when you’re hungry like we were after being on the ball field yesterday, it’s a lot of work watching when you’re starving and you’re hungry you don’t want a little package of Cheez-Its you want to go and sit down for a hamburger and some fries and pie which is what we did you want to be stuffed that’s what he’s talking about here the presence of God, he said, my soul will be satisfied.

My soul will be stuffed. My soul will find you to be sufficient. And my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.

I’m not praising you because it’s a box to check off on my list of spiritual things I need to do today. I’m praising you because it’s a joy to. And so we see just a little glimpse in this passage, in these five verses, of what worship really is.

We see a glimpse of how David worshiped. We think of worship as an action or an activity when really the Bible teaches that worship is a way of life. It’s a lifestyle.

It’s something we do every day. I have racked my brain for years trying to come up with a definition of worship. The first time I preached on worship, about three years ago, I wrote out a paragraph definition and gave it to the church like everybody was supposed to remember that.

It was great. I revised it and thought more and more about it and tried to come up with something shorter and more memorable. And I’ve come up with this.

That worship means live to confess His goodness and greatness. It sort of rhymes a little bit. Live to confess His goodness and His greatness.

Live your life in such a way, which is what David was talking about doing. He was so overwhelmed by the goodness and greatness of God that he couldn’t help but praise Him and submit to Him and obey him. He couldn’t help but worship him with his life.

And so live to confess his goodness and greatness means live your life in such a way that you’re motivated. You’re motivated to reflect how good he is and how great he is. That you’re motivated to tell him that in relationship with him.

You’re motivated to tell others about how good and how great he is. But you’re also motivated to do something about it. To respond to him in obedience and in submission.

Live to confess his goodness and greatness. We need to be worshiping God on a daily basis. Not just in the sense of singing songs.

Hey, it’s great. If you want to sing songs of praise and worship, sometimes I drive down the road. I hope, y’all, if you come up here while I’m working during the day, that you’ll let me know when you’re here.

Otherwise, you might hear bad singing walking up and down the hall. Sometimes I just let loose. In the car, in the office when I think I’m alone.

There’s nothing wrong with singing and worship. That is a part of it. Understand, that is a part of it.

It’s just not the whole thing. It means we live our lives every day in such a way that our minds are focused on who He is and what He deserves. You say, well, how would I get anything done?

I’m not saying you can’t have other thoughts. I’m not saying you can’t sit there and read the menu and decide what to order. I’m not saying you can’t sit there and watch a little television with your family.

But always in our minds. You know, we can have two thoughts in our minds sometimes. Always in our minds.

God should not be the last thought. We shouldn’t give him a passing thought when we go to bed at night. But from the time that we wake up in the morning until the time that we go to bed at night, He should be there.

He should be there in our consciousness. He should be there in our thoughts. And we should make our decisions based on that principle, confessing His goodness and greatness.

What I orient my life around is what I worship. And if I make my decisions all the time based on what’s going to be best for me financially, what do I worship? Anybody?

It’s not a trick question, I promise. money. If all of my decisions are based solely around what makes my wife happy, what am I worshiping?

I don’t know if nobody wants to answer that one. Worshiping my marriage, my relationship, which there’s nothing wrong with making your wife happy. Our decisions, our plans, our priorities should be oriented around God.

What does He want? What does He expect me to do? What’s His will for my life?

What’s His plan? Now I’ve given you in your bulletin a little handout as I’ve been doing from week to week and I don’t know if this is I don’t know if they’re beneficial to you I don’t know, one or two of you have told me you’re using them and I’m glad for that. The rest of you may or may not be using them, I don’t know.

But they’ve been beneficial to me because I can’t just cop out and say well you need to worship, you need to pray. I have to think a little harder and further and say what does that mean? What does that mean?

It was going to be real easy to come in here this morning and tell you well you need to be worshiping God more. You need to worship God every day. It was a little more difficult to sit down and say what does that look like?

What’s involved here? And as you read it you’ll hopefully pick up on a phrase in there but I’m not telling you this is your formula, this is your checkbox, do this and you will have worshipped. These are just some thoughts and just some suggestions on how do I worship God on a daily basis and some of the things that I thought about based on this passage and we are almost finished.

But one of the things that I’ve written here is that when our minds are constantly confronted with who God is and how worthy He is excuse me, how worthy He is of all the glory we can offer Him, then we’ll begin to worship with our whole lives. thinking through these things it’s just a start it’s the training wheels of how do I worship everyday you go through and you think about the attributes of God the greatness of God you think about what’s one thing I want to praise God for today what is the one thing that at this point in my life amazes me more than anything else about God for me it’s still his omniscience how he can know everything about me and everything about you before it even happens to us. He knows what we think.

He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows the thoughts before I even think them. That amazes me.

And then the fact that He still loves me after all that. Take a minute and think about an attribute of God that you find incredible, that you find amazing, and then praise Him for that. The goodness of God.

Think about the way He’s blessed you. And you can read through this yourself, but He has blessed you, I promise. Jared, you don’t know my story.

I don’t have to. You’re alive. He’s blessed you.

Make a list of the things that he’s blessed you with. If I were a betting man, I’d say it’s longer than you’d think. That you’d be surprised at how long it is.

And then thank him for those things. Do this every day. And then the guidance of God.

Think about how he’s in charge and how he’s supposed to be in charge. We work for Him and yet a lot of times we act like it’s the other way around. We work for Him.

What’s the last thing He’s told me to do? I need to be obedient to Him. How can I look at the last thing He’s told me to do and be obedient to that and put it into practice?

What do I need to change today to be obedient to what He’s called me to do? These things are a start to get us thinking about what worship really is. but it’s a lifestyle that reflects his goodness and greatness.

It’s a lifestyle that confesses his goodness and greatness by the way we live on a daily basis. And when we start, again, when we start bombarding our minds, when our minds are constantly confronted with who he is and what he deserves, I really feel like that’s the training wheel. That’s where we get started, really worshiping him, Not just on Sundays and not just with music, but worshiping Him with our lives every breath we take.