Study on Worshipping God
John 4:20-24
I. Introduction (John 4:24)
A. What is worship? True worship, real devotion does not consist in the performance of certain religious duties at set times, but in the spirit in which the Ordinary duties of common life are performed. William Law
B. This is a series looking at True Worship, and True Worshippers
C. So Far, we have looked at the Wrong Ways to Worship, and began to explore the Right Ways to Worship God
D. Later on, we will look at HOW God’s people worshipped God – it’s awesome
II. Principles of Worship
A. Everyone worships some-thing or some-one!
B. But most people miss the target when it comes to worshipping God - People assume they know what worship should be like.
1. But they either don’t know God
2. Or they don’t know how to worship Him
3. Or they don’t care to worship Him – I want to address those people a little later on!
C. Worship means to show someone’s worth! To show someone’s worth-ship! An act of ascribing worth/value to a person. Ascribing great worth to a person
1. To honour – extol, lift-up, praise
2. To please
3. To bless
4. To love with all the heart
5. To glorify – put all the attention on – put the lime-light on
6. To serve gladly and whole-heartedly
7. When a person worship’s God, these things are all active!
III. Review – Last Week we Started Worshipping God in Spirit
A. Worshipping God in Spirit is An Inner Worship (Psalm 103:1) – not a formality, not an external act – it happens only on the inside!
B. Worshipping God in Spirit is An Attitude – the WAY you approach God is just as important as the fact that you are worshipping God
C. Today I want to focus on how much of “me” is involved in my worship
IV. Message – Worshipping God in Spirit – Part 2
A. The Example of Enoch - A great example of worship in the spirit in the Bible is Enoch (Gen 5:22-24; Heb 11:5,6)
1. He Walked with God – there was not a moment that Enoch thought God was not worthy of sharing it with! That’s what it means to “walk with God”… enjoy the presence of God as you go through your day
2. He Befriended God – Enoch shared everything he went through with God – started at the birth of his son, and grew deeper from then on
3. He Loved God – couldn’t but help love such a being that had made him, and loved HIM (1John 4:19) – we are talking about loving the God who truly loves us (Rom 5:8; Gal 2:20; Deut 7:7,8)
4. He Pleased God – He blessed God and made Him happy (Heb 11:5)
a. Didn’t try to figure what he could get away with, but what could he do that would please Him!
b. That’s the difference in a Christian’s life! We amazingly now seek to bring pleasure to Him – bring a smile to His face!
5. He Thought about God (Ps 10:4)
a. THEOLOGY is the queen of sciences – studied GOD!
b. Enoch tried to understand God’s ways, His thoughts, His plans, His Truths!
c. To Enoch, God was not the unknowable, but the challenge (Phil 3:10)
6. He Honoured God – Enoch put God first in his life before himself or anyone else – more important that his career, his family, his money, his schedule, his debts, his friends… was HIS God – God was not his “pet”, but His LORD!
7. He Served God – He preached, witnessed, did whatever God needed doing. Worship makes no demands of God, but rather waits to do God’s will
8. In Summary:
a. To Enoch, God was not someone to constantly get forgiveness from (that’s all people use God for today), but rather, someone to love, someone get to know more and more, and walk with, and serve passionately, and live cleanly for!
b. Here’s a secret: Do you know how to get the victory over some sin of the flesh? Change what you worship! Galatians 5:16 says “Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh”
B. Worshipping God in Spirit is Consuming (Eph 5:18)
1. God is no trivial deity in this universe – He is Lord of all
2. It is amazing however, just how little worship this Being gets
3. I aim to change that with this series of messages from God’s word
4. The Consuming Nature of Worship
a. You cannot just worship God in part
b. We know what it means to be filled with fury and anger
c. A Christian needs to know HOW to become filled with the Spirit of God so that they worship Him with the whole heart (Ps 86:12)
1) It is like driving at night - all your attention must be on the road
2) It is like cutting a diamond – it takes all the attention and focus of a master cutter to cut a diamond right (let your mind drift and the €30,000 diamond stone becomes worthless) – and so it is true with worship – it takes all our attention, focus and being, or else it is waste
3) It is like falling in love!
d. True Worship is not an easy thing – it costs
1) When a person begins to consider the cost of worshipping Jesus Christ, they find out it will cost them everything
2) What is so awesome, is that they won’t mind paying it!
e. Listen to these Scriptures
1) Ps 34:1 “I will bless the Lord at all times…” – that is a hard goal… there are MANY times when we just don’t want to bless or praise the Lord! But we ought to! He is worthy (Job 1:20-21)
2) Ps 104:33 “I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.”
5. God is not asking for us to sell our homes, shave our heads, wear sackcloth and move into a beehive hut or a monastery in order to worship Him, but that we worship God in everything we do, no matter what we do
6. True Worship affects all of our life… not just a few moments on a Sunday. Here is how to tell if you are truly worshipping God, or just giving Him a “token gesture”…
a. It Affects Our Sanity (Isa 26:3)
b. It Affects Our Music (Ps 30:11,12)
c. It Affects Our Families (Ps 145:4)
d. It Affects Our Sleep (Ps 63:6,7)
e. It Affects Our Marriages (Ps 34:3) – no worship when there is division and bitterness (1Pet 3:7)
f. It Affects Our Church (Ps 22:22) – it is so important to be a blessing, and be a delighter in the Lord, instead of a downer (Cf John 11:14,16)
g. It Affects Our Jobs (Col 3:23) – hey! Be a light, be the hardest worker, be a testimony of a great God at work – not a complainer
h. If Affects Our Money (Matt 2:11) – we start giving our best instead of our left-overs!
7. Oh that someone in this room would LET their worship of God affect their life, their home, their music, their dress, their speech, their job, their wallet and purse, their walk with God, and their relationship with others!!!
8. None of the above comes because God simply demands it, but rather because he earned it!!!
V. Conclusion – How did God earn such an Inner Attitude of Consuming Worship?
A. By Seeking Us – not waiting on us to desire Him
B. By Taking Our Place in Death on the cross – innocent for the guilty
C. By Offering us a Way Back to Him – through His efforts, not ours
D. By Just Being a Faithful God – It is His Middle Name!
E. Will someone take Him into their heart and life today, and begin to worship Him with their whole being?
Craig Ledbetter
Bible Baptist Church, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland