Phil: Well, praise the Lord! As I was thinking about today and wondering what the Lord might have, I believe I’m correct that the young people are gonna have an event this afternoon. Is that correct? And it’s focused on worship and praise? Is that right? Praise God!
Well, the more I thought about that, the more I said, you know, that’s a subject that we need to talk about and explore, ‘cause I think it’s awfully easy for us, or it would be awfully easy for us just to say, “Oh, I know all about that.” And we think in terms of singing songs together and saying the right words and clapping and raising our hands and all of that. But as I thought about it, and as I looked up scriptures, I mean, it’s a big subject and I certainly don’t intend to try to cover everything, but there’s a lot to it that I believe God wants to make more real to us.
And one of the things that for some reason, I decided at some point I wanted to look up the dictionary definition of worship. I mean, that’s not exactly coming out of the Bible, but Merriam-Webster’s not too bad some of the time. But anyway, I was interested in the definition. It said worship is the act of declaring to God His worth, affirming Who He is and what He has done, and responding to Him in praise, adoration, thanksgiving, and awe.
That’s a pretty good definition. You know, not everything you Google comes out like that, but that was one that did. What an amazing simple definition that is of recognizing Who God is and how great He is.
You know, we’re pretty good as human beings at our own form of worship. Paul talked about the condition of the human race as worshiping the creation, not the Creator. And that’s the truth. It seems like the idea of worshiping and being amazed and giving praise and awe, expressing awe is somehow baked into our nature. And yet we are so self-centered that it tends to revolve around us and earthly things, things that please us, things that amaze us.
But I mean, you think about people going to ball games and, hooray, they hit the winning home run, or they shot the winning basket, or whatever, or a concert. Wow, wasn’t that amazing? Oh, didn’t that thrill me? And we are so good at just expressing that kind of thing.
And yet, how that misses what I believe God created us for. And that is recognizing Who He is. You know, the Word tells us the heavens declare the glory of God. And here is man willfully blind to the reality of his Creator. I mean, you talk about things we ought to be saying, wow, about. That’s where the wow needs to come in. I mean, we have not only the greatness of what He’s done, but the heart that He has for us and for His people. Lord, it should just absolutely set us free all the time. And yet, we don’t live in that like we should.
And as I thought about it and as I was looking up scripture, I just frankly was convicted how little we really understand worship and engage in it. It can become just an activity. But you know, you see it develop in the scriptures. There was this sense of, you know, when God would make himself known to somebody, there was in them a sense that, My God, this is the God of creation and He’s actually talking to me and He’s making Himself known to me. And there was a sense of willing submission and recognition of who He was. And you know, it grew out of that.
And yet the heathen had their own kinds of worship, didn’t they? I mean, every part of the heathen culture throughout history really has been one of worshiping idols in one form or another. People have their idols today, but I mean, literally they were worshiping what they believed to be gods. Of course, so much of it was self-centered, wasn’t it? I’m gonna have an act of praise and submission and even sacrifice, and I’m expecting to get something out of this. It’s focused on us.
But I’ll tell you, there’s a God who reveals Himself, and He began to reveal Himself to Abraham and to others going forward. And you see that there was a sense of offerings of sacrifice and praise. And some of the brothers this morning mentioned incense being offered in the tabernacle and how there was this constant something going up to God that was an expression from the people. And yet, how much of that was really from the heart? How much of it was just a form?
And so you see them going through centuries of ups and downs spiritually. They would kind of come back and acknowledge the Lord, and God would show His mercy. Think of how little we deserve anything from this God. And yet there’s constantly this heart that reaches out to us in our broken state and is willing to forgive and willing to cleanse and willing to restore. And God would come and fight their battles, and then they’d go for a while. Next thing you know, they’d be right back to their idolatry and running away from God.
And then of course, you see, finally God raises up a man who He describes as a man after His own heart. Somehow, an unlikely seventh son of a family, all he did pretty much growing up was take care of his father’s sheep. He was the last one anybody expected in his family to amount to anything. Brothers looked down on him and despised him in a sense at one point, but there was something about him that God was able to make Himself known.
No doubt as he was out there with the sheep, he looked around and he saw the greatness of God. And there was something in him that responded to that. Isn’t that what God is looking for? It’s wonderful that He shows us His mercy and grace, but He’s looking for a response from us. And so David had that in his heart that he would learn to sing, and he was a musician. And so there was that quality about him.
And you remember how Saul invited, got a bad way, and there were spirits that were bothering him and just driving him crazy. And somebody suggested, You know, you need to get a musician in here who can play, I guess the right kind of music, whatever it was, it would soothe them. And they found, somebody said, Oh, I know a guy. And they brought David. And so David would come into the presence of the king and strum his harp and sing, and the king would be relieved from all the presence.
You know devils don’t like praise? They hate it. You wanna get rid of devils, praise the Lord. I’ll tell you, they won’t stay around that because there’s something coming out of us that’s just not what we usually put out. Am I the only one? I don’t think so. But anyway, so David was the one that God had called.
And yet, of course, you know what happened with him. He wound up on the run because Saul hated him and wanted to kill him, recognized that he was the guy. And so he goes out and he’s on the run literally for years, looking to God. And how many of the Psalms grow out of that?
You know, brother Ron was mentioning that this morning. We tend to stay in the same area of our Bible reading year after year, following the same reading plan. But you see David getting in all kinds of crazy, life-threatening situations. And yet there was something in him that constantly looked to God and reached out and worshiped Him and knew that in spite of the circumstance, there’s a God I can look to and He’s faithful and He’s with me. And it doesn’t matter what men do and what all these other earthly circumstances, I can put them in His hands and know that He’ll handle it. And I worship Him and I praise Him. And there was something in him that brought that response.
What did life’s trials bring to you? Ooh, that’s kind of painful, isn’t it? And here’s David. You know, one of my favorite Psalms, Ron referred to this this morning, was that Psalm 13, How long, O Lord? There he was in a situation that didn’t resolve real quickly. And he prayed and he looked and he couldn’t feel God. He couldn’t see any evidence that God cared. And there was this reaching out to God.
And yet there’s an awesome “but” in that chapter, that short chapter, where he acknowledges the Lord’s faithfulness and said, I know I can trust You and I’m looking to You and I’m gonna keep on praising You. Wow. You talk about a man after God’s own heart. I wonder how much we are after God’s own heart.
And I’ll tell you this. So David, anyway, was finally brought to the throne after years of battle. And even after Saul died, it was another seven years before he became the king over all the nation. And then they still had battles. His whole life was one of just struggle and strife and warfare and having to look to God. And yet in the midst of that, he established a system of worship. The center of their spiritual life in Jerusalem was a tent that he established where they finally brought the ark, what I’m thinking of. Anyway, they brought it and established it there and had the priests ministering there.
But he had choirs, he had orchestras, he had all the music that they could come up with. And he wrote hymn after hymn and psalm after psalm of praise, raised up men like Asaph who wrote some of the psalms. And there was a system of worship that was constantly going up to God. He recognized, we’re His people. He’s worthy of our worship. If we’re experiencing any good thing in this world, it’s because of His heart, not because we deserve it. And there was something about him that understood how it really was.
I wonder how many times do we, God help us. I don’t wanna come and go through a form. And how easy is it to do that? And of course, that’s what happened. You had so many, the majority of Israelites over the centuries were unbelievers at heart. And there were times when, out of self-interest perhaps, or out of habit, they would continue to go through the form. And then they’d get to the point where, well, that’s not working. Let’s go talk to the Baals and offer sacrifice, and we’ll get what we want. Just unbelief and a form.
And do you remember some of the scriptures that Jesus referred to? I guess I had one marked and I don’t have it marked now. That’s all right. But He quotes one Isaiah. How many times did we go to Isaiah? I’ll tell you, the Lord spoke a lot through him, didn’t He? I think the one I’m thinking of is in Chapter 29. And the Lord so often not only was looking to the future but talking about the condition of the people.
And Jesus quotes this in His day. In verse 13, the Lord says, These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. You know, there’s a lot that’s called worship that isn’t. It’s just something that people learn by tradition. And I believe that God wants us to learn how to worship from our hearts.
You know, one thing, the devil will jump in and try to say, Well boy, He must have some kind of ego. But how easy it is for us to project human nature onto God. He is so utterly unlike us, it’s unfathomable. Yes, there is praise that He is worthy of. And I’ll tell you, if we had one glimpse of His glory, it would blow us away.
We would be down on our faces in worship and adoration to say such a being as that could even care about somebody like me and be patient with me and all the things that are lacking and all the things that need to happen in my life. How could somebody not just throw me out and be that pure and that great? How could somebody who could breathe out galaxies of stars that they still can’t fully explore actually care about me?
Well, isn’t that what David said? What is man, when I consider your heavens, what is man that you think about him? The son of man, you care for Him. Oh, I’ll tell you, we have Somebody that’s worthy of our praise more than we could ever begin to imagine.
But anyway, another scripture that I thought about, and this one I did actually have marked, and that’s in Amos 5. And this tells you what the Lord thought about their sacrifices on the one hand, but also their music. Because apparently at this point in their history, they were still doing what David had set up. Now, it had been handed down from one generation to another and they were still coming together and singing the songs, and they probably sounded good, okay? But what did the Lord think about it?
In verse 23, he says, “Away with the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the music of your harps.” You know, be quiet. Shut up. This noise is just a bunch of noise to me. That’s not what I’m looking for. I don’t care about, I mean, I created musical beauty and all of that, but if that’s all you got, I don’t care about it. It’s just noise to me because I want something that comes from the heart.
Oh my God, help us to get to that place where we have something that’s coming from our hearts actively. We’re not just mouthing words and going through a form. The Lord is looking for something, but here’s what He was looking for: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” In other words, the real worship that God is looking for is something that comes from a life that is actually lived in a way that is in harmony with Him. Otherwise, what good is it?
You know, people have all kinds of, I mean, there are all kinds of human things that are behind it. One of them, as we have mentioned, is just tradition. Well, that’s what we do. That’s how you conduct a service. You come together and you sing, and we call it worship. And we sing songs that somebody wrote a century or a long time ago or maybe recently, and they have wonderful words and we mouth the words. And I’m sure He’s happy with that.
But how many times do those words get spoken from a life that’s just not lived in harmony with Him at all, or not that much? And there He is looking down and seeing past all the noise and seeing the heart.
And you know, a lot of the greatest music in history has been religious music, church music, some of those beautiful things. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with beautiful music and playing skillfully. David even wrote about that, playing skillfully to the Lord. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if that’s all it is and people come together and say, Wow, that was so moving, that was so, and yet, if there’s no real worship from the heart, no real connection, it’s just noise, isn’t it? And God help us.
And you know, I’ve mentioned in the past being in churches that emphasize a lot about being able to feel God, and somehow He has to express Himself in ways that we could see and touch, and maybe miracles and feelings, certainly. And so their idea of coming into a service, and I mean their idea is that if God is really present, we ought to be able to see it and feel it.
And so one of the things we need to do when we come together is really have a rousing song service and then we can get our emotions all jacked up and that’s God in our presence. But you can do that and God be a million miles away because it’s just working up human emotion. I just pray that God will teach us the difference so that we’re not out trying to convince God to do something for us. All right, I’ll play my part, I’ll do this, but I’m expecting blessings, or I’m expecting something.
Oh God, help us to really enter into the relationship because that’s a key word, isn’t it? God is looking for a relationship with the people. And I see that this desire for us to be able to express our love, and our appreciation, and our amazement, and all the positive emotions, not as some kind of ego trip that He’s on, but as opening channels of a relationship.
Because isn’t that how He sees us? I don’t mean praise in all that sense, but I mean there’s a heart that is constantly reaching out and longing to show His greatness to us. And not only that, to bring us to a place where someone could look at us and say, Wow. And we would know, Man, I didn’t do that, He did. And there would still be that heart that would reach up and say, Lord, I just wanna reach up to You. I wanna give You all the praise and the glory, Lord.
I’ll tell you what, doesn’t that open the channel? If we are really and truly focused on the Lord, and really by faith, recognizing His goodness, even when it doesn’t feel like it, are we not opening? I mean, what are we thinking about? What’s in control of our being at that particular point? Does it matter that we have open channels with God?
Because if that’s not the case, what is the case? What are we focused on? We’re focused on ourselves, how I’m feeling, how sorry I am for myself, and all the human emotions, and my troubles, and what I want in the world. Everything, my attention is all on that, my whole being is just misdirected, when here’s a God who made me, Who loves me more than I could ever imagine. And all He wants is for me to open my heart so that He can pour Himself in and I can be like Him.
Obviously I’m returning that love to Him. There’s an open channel there where I’m not getting in the way with what I feel and what I want, and all my unbelief. But not only does He wanna do that, He wants to pour in Himself in such a way that that’s what comes out to other people. And then it’s like we’ve said so many times, then they’re not seeing me. They’re seeing Him.
So, this thing we call worship is not just an activity that’s part of a service. It’s meant to be a way of relating to Him all the time. And I just, I pray, because I mean, how much of the time do we go around feeling sorry for ourselves or focused on our earthly troubles or earthly circumstances instead of just, Lord, I’m walking with You. Lord, I know you love me. I know You’re in charge. I know that I don’t have to feel it to know that You care about me, You’re with me. Oh, praise God1 Praise the Lord!
