I’m sure that by now most of you know I’m a Star Trek fan and the truth is, I’ve been one since the very beginning. When I was a teen I remember my dad encouraging me to join him in watching the pilot episode that first introduced Captain Kirk and the pointed-eared Mr. Spok. And both of us were faithful fans until we got the disappointing news that the show was to be cancelled. Then, a few years later, when I was in college, people began to talk about a feature film that would re-unite the entire cast. When it finally came out I stood in line to see the first showing. And, I wasn’t disappointed. From my perspective as a true “trekker” it was a great movie! Well, this week as I began my study, the plot of that first feature Star Trek film came to mind. I remembered that in the first few minutes of that movie we learned a GIGANTIC space craft of some sort had entered Federation space-and was destroying everything in its path. It was on a direct heading for Earth and who do you think Starfleet Command called on to save the day? Well, it was Captain Kirk of course! He assembled his old crew, seized command of the nly re-fitted Enterprise, and headed out to meet the approaching alien craft at high warp. When they rendezvoused with the invader Kirk and his crew discovered that it was not really an alien space craft after all-but that in actuality it was an old space probe that had originally been sent out by NASA hundreds of years earlier-a probe named Voyager.
On its travels this old probe had apparently fallen into a black hole and been damaged. Then it drifted until it was found and not only repaired but greatly enhanced by an advanced civilization hence it’s huge size and incredible power. Well, Kirk and his crew learned that Voyager was now returning to earth to find it’s “creator” so that it could download the information it had gathered in its travels and ask for new instructions. In essence this old space probe had come home in search of PURPOSE. It needed an assignment. It needed to know what it’s “creator” wanted it to do.
Well, for a machine, this old space craft was pretty sharp-because as Bill and I pointed out in our skit a few weeks ago-if you want to discover something’s purpose you have to either consult its Creator or look in the owner’s manual. We were of course CREATED by God and for God, so to discover our purpose-our assignment in life-we have to go to Him-or to The Bible-the “owners manual” He has provided. Until we do this our lives won’t make sense. We’ll just drift aimlessly through life like that damaged old space probe.
Sermon:
Now, in last week’s message I told you that God had FIVE reasons for creating us-five PURPOSES for each of us to fulfill in life-and today we’re going to open the Bible-this instruction manual He has given us and look at the FIRST of these purposes which is this-to LOVE GOD.
Our study has already taught us that God’s motive in making us was love. He made us to love us.
And so I guess you could say this week we are looking at the FLIP of that because God wants you and me to love Him back. A great proof text for this principle is found in Matthew’s gospel where it tells us that one day Jesus was walking down the street and a man came up to Him and said, “Lord, what’s the most important command in the entire Bible?” And Jesus replied, “Here it is. Love the Lord your God. This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)
Now, I want to draw your attention to the words “first” and “greatest” in this verse…because by using these words Jesus-God in the flesh-was saying this command is of PRIMARY importance. In essence He was telling us, “Here is the most important thing to do in life: you are to learn to love Me back, because I made you to love you and I know you. And I want you to know and love Me back.”
Another thing: you can summarize this command-this first purpose we are to fulfill-in one word, “WORSHIP.” And I say this because worship is basically KNOWING and LOVING GOD. Go ahead and write this in the blank provided in your outline: “My 1st purpose in life is to: WORSHIP God.”
Now, did you ever think of worship in that way? Have you ever thought of worship as simply knowing and loving God?
If you haven’t don’t feel bad because these days misconceptions about worship abound. Many Christians just don’t understand or have forgotten what genuine worship is. When many of us think of “worship” we think of going to church, or singing a hymn or a praise song, or listening to a sermon, or praying, or taking communion. And that’s not completely wrong-I mean each of those things can be EXPRESSIONS of worship but the truth is worship is not limited to these things. I say this because, worship is not just what we do IN CHURCH. There’s far more to it than that. I think the best verse to go to for help in getting a proper understanding of TRUE worship is Romans 12, verse 1. We studied it on day ten-this past Tuesday. Let’s read it aloud together. “Because of God’s great mercy to us… offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer.”
Now, I’m not going to go into great detail about this verse because, as I said you’ve already studied it, but I do want to take a quick look at two words-“because” and “offer.” You see these two words tell us two very important things about genuine worship.
A. First, genuine worship is MY RESPONSE to God’s love.
Write that in your outlines. Worship is responding to the love of God. Here in Romans 12 it says “BECAUSE of God’s great mercy-BECAUSE of God’s great love,” we OFFER ourselves. So, worship is RESPONDING to the love of God.
B. The second thing I want to point out is that WORSHIP is GIVING BACK to God.
Write that in your outlines as well because whenever we give back to God…whenever we OFFER anything to God, that’s WORSHIP.
Now, the question is, what are we supposed to OFFER God?
What do you give back to God? He already has everything! I mean, if you think finding Christmas gifts is hard for some people, what do you give a God Who already has everything? After all, He made the world. He made you. He made the universe. What do you give Him? Well the Bible tells us what to give God-we give Him YOUR LOVE. In fact, Jesus is very specific in telling us HOW to give our love. In Mark 12:30-our memory verse for this week-He tells us that there are three ways that we are to LOVE God. Let’s say it together once more: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”
Now, this morning I want us to follow Warren’s outline and examine 3 ways that this verse tells us we are to fulfill our first purpose: WORSHIP-3 ways God wants us to give Him our love.
First, God wants us to love Him thoughtfully. This is what Jesus means when He says we are to love God, “with our mind.”
Second, God wants us to love Him passionately-as Jesus said, we are to love God “with all our heart and all our soul.”
And Third, we are to love God practically-“with all our strength” or with all our abilities.
You see, the truth is….even though God created the entire universe including me and you, there are three things He DOES NOT HAVE unless we give them to Him. He doesn’t have our ATTENTION unless we give it to Him. That’s loving God with our mind. He doesn’t have our AFFECTION, unless we give it to Him. That’s loving God with our heart and our soul. And God doesn’t have our ABILITY, unless we give it to Him. That’s loving God with our strength. And whenever we give these three things back to God in response to His love for us that is the heart of worship. Okay, let’s go back now and focus a little deeper on each of these ways we are to worship or love God.
1. First, worship is FOCUSING MY ATTENTION on God.
Write that in your outlines. Worship is focusing our mind, our thoughts, our ATTENTION on God. And I should point out that this is different from what many world religions teach when it comes to worship. You see, many religions say you have to put your mind into NEUTRAL and sort of LOSE your mind to the universe. But that’s not what the one TRUE God says. No, He says the kind of worship that pleases Him is when we FOCUS our minds on Him-when we use the energy it takes to concentrate our thoughts on Him-and Him alone. Now, be honest-how many of you have a hard time doing this? For example, how many of you have ever drifted off mentally in a worship service? Have you ever zoned out during a sermon-not here of course but you know what I mean, the pastor starts preaching and you kind of drift in and out of what he says and before you know it you notice that everyone around you is standing for the invitation!
How many of you have ever sung the doxology without really thinking of the words? “Praise God from Whom all hm…hmm…hmm…..hmmm…hmmm…hmmm….AMEN” Have you ever sung a hymn or a chorus like that-such that you didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics? I remember once in my college church I was leading the congregation in singing a hymn and my mind wandered while we were singing the chorus and then I panicked because I couldn’t remember which verse we had just sung. So, I made an educated guess and led them in singing the last verse-but the look on everyone’s fact told me that was the one we had just done. Well, I wasn’t worshiping God with my mind that day was I?! I wasn’t focusing my attention on Him.
What about other worship times? Have any of you ever prayed the blessing on “auto pilot?”
You know what I mean. You bow your head and begin to pray and say AMEN. But if you kids were to ask you what you said you wouldn’t know because you just winged it? Have you ever started talking to God in your private prayer life but something distracted you and you left Him hanging “on the line” as you began to think of something you needed to do at work and you went off to do it without finishing? Well, any kind of worship-corporate or private-where we don’t focus on God doesn’t please Him-because He doesn’t want us to just go through the motions of worship-No, He wants us to focus our thoughts on Him. He wants our mental attention! And do you know WHY God wants this? Do you know why He wants our focus? God wants your focus because He is focused on us. Look at what Psalm 139 verses 1 through 3. “You have looked deep into my heart, Lord, and You know all about me. You know when I am resting or when I am working.” Now, would you read this last part with me: “You notice everything I do and everywhere I go.”
Well this text and others like it tell us that God constantly focuses His attention on us. He never takes His eyes off of us. He never stops thinking about us. And He does this because, as I said last week the reason is He made you-His motive behind creating you-is to love you-so He watches everything you do. When my kids were born sometimes I’d do nothing but watch them.
It gave me great joy just to look at them….watching them learn how to use their hands…learning how to roll where they wanted to go and then eventually to crawl. We’d call the grandparents to give them regular reports on things we had noticed. And that’s how God is but to a much greater degree because we are never out of His eyes for even a moment. Our Heavenly Father is always focusing His attention on you and me. He loves us so much that He is always looking at us so, one of the greatest expressions of our love for Him is to look back-to give Him our focused attention. This is a form of TRUE worship because this makes God feel loved!
Wives-you understand this principle don’t you!? You want your husband’s full attention, especially when he is talking to you. I mean it’s a common scene. A husband and wife sit at the breakfast table. The husband is immersed in the newspaper while the wife is pouring out her heart. Frustrated she complains, “You’re not listening to me!”
“I can repeat every word you said,” is the standard response and the husband proceeds to demonstrate. Well is the wife satisfied? NO….she doesn’t want him simply to be able to replay her words. After all, a tape recorder could do that. No, she wants him to be fully present. She wants him to put down the paper, look her in the eye, and pay attention to her. Only then does she feel loved and valued and wanted. Well, that’s the way it is with God. He is always focused on us, and He wants us to focus our heart and our attention on Him. And that’s difficult sometimes because the easiest thing human beings like you and me to do in life is to lose our focus. We’re not like one of those auto focus cameras that you might have, you point it at something and it focuses. No, we have to DECIDE to focus. We have to CHOOSE to focus on things. Now, how do you do that? How do you learn to FOCUS on God?
A. Well, the best way to do that is by establishing a daily time with God.
Just a few minutes during the day in which you DISCIPLINE yourself-TRAIN yourself to focus on God. I hope that doing this for 40 days will help you develop this holy habit-I hope this practice settles itself into your routine such that you continue doing it every day for the rest of your life because if we are to fulfill our God-given purposes we need to learn to stop everything else at a certain time each day to just be with God-a time to FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION on Him. This is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 6:6 when He said,
“Find a quiet secluded place, so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense His grace.”
Notice that Jesus said we need to find a “place” to be alone with God and give Him your full attention. And that PLACE doesn’t have to be the church. You can worship God anywhere: in your car on the way to work, in your backyard under your favorite shade tree, anywhere. I also want you to note another word that Jesus used, the word, “simply” to remind us that we don’t have to use fancy words or a special ceremony. We are to be with God simply. And then Jesus also said we are to be HONEST with God. In other words, we don’t have to try to be “spiritual” whatever that means. God wants us to just be real with Him.
B. Now, there’s a second thing that we can do to focus on God, and that is learn to develop a CONSTANT conversation with Him.
Look at this next verse. The Bible tells us in Psalm 105, verse 4, “Worship Him continually.” You see God wants more than an APPOINTMENT with you-He loves you so much that He wants to be a part of ALL your life experiences! So we need to learn to carry on a constant conversation with God. This is what David meant when he wrote Psalm 34:1 and said, “I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise will ALWAYS be on my lips.” This is what 1 Thessalonians 5:17 means when it says, “Pray without ceasing.”
Now-I do that all the time. When I’m having trouble with a particular sermon point I say, “God, how should I word this? Where do You want me to go with this point?” When I’m counseling someone and they share a problem that is so complex, I don’t know how to advise them I pray, “God, help me. What should I say? How can I help this person?” When I sin, I pray, “Forgive me God. I’m sorry. Help me not to do that again.” When I’m alone, I pray like this out loud. When I’m in a crowd, I pray it silently-mentally. And we can have this CONSTANT conversation with Him because the truth is we don’t have to COME into the presence of God. We are already in His presence. When we learn to do this it is like we literally walk through life with God-just as Adam and Eve walked with Him in the Garden of Eden.
And as we learn to carry on this ongoing conversation with our Creator and Redeemer we begin to reap some amazing benefits.
You see, when we focus on self-well, the inevitable results are thoughts of…worry, insecurity, anxiety, guilt, fear, discouragement. But when that focus shifts from us to God all of a sudden, we begin to sense gratitude and hope and confidence and love. Plus, we never feel alone-NEVER. No matter where we are-no matter what we are going through-we come to actually SENSE God’s constant abiding presence with us. And that is an incredibly comforting feeling. This past week I was watching the old war movie, A Bridge Too Far while I jogged. It’s the true story of a plan during WWII by the allies to capture several bridges in German-held territory…to bring a quick end to the war. Well it worked-they captured all but one bridge which led the allied commanders to say they had attempted to go “a bridge too far.” Well, the division at the farthest bridge had to retreat under cover of darkness-and they couldn’t take their wounded with them. They had to leave them behind. Perhaps they hoped these men would have a better chance in a German hospital. And one of the last scenes of the movie shows these wounded, bandaged men-hundreds of them-sitting together, waiting to be captured by the Germans. As Hitler’s troops came over the rise one soldier began to sing and soon all of them joined in and here’s the song they sang. If you know it sing it with me:
“Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me…
I need Thy presence ev’ry passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r? Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? Thro’ cloud or sunshine, O abide with me!
Well, the truth is life often feels like a losing battle doesn’t it? And the way to feel comfort and peace is to learn to constantly practice the presence of God….to ABIDE with Him throughout life by giving Him our focused ATTENTION. As Isaiah 26, verse 3 says, “You, Oh God, will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, whose thoughts are fixed on You!” So, do whatever you can to develop this constant running conversation with God. Think of yourself as a secret service agent with one of those combination mike/ear piece deals who is in constant contact with His superior officer.
This will not only benefit you-but it will make God smile because He considers any time we give Him our full attention WORSHIP that is acceptable and pleasing in His sight. Now, not only is worship focusing my attention on God,
2. it’s also EXPRESSING MY AFFECTION to God.
And, as I said earlier, this is loving God with our heart and soul. It’s expressing our deep love FOR God TO God. Now, saying “I love you” is a very risky thing HUMAN to HUMAN isn’t it?
I mean, when you say it the first time you’re kind of going out on a limb because if the other person doesn’t say, “I love you too”- it’s embarrassing PLUS it hurts deeply doesn’t it? Well God has taken away the risk in our relationship with Him. As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He has first loved us.” And God has taken the initiative in telling us of His great love in a thousand ways. He did it when He made us. He does it when He provides for us. And, the clearest expression of His love of course was when He sent His only Son to die for us. As Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this; While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” So, God loves us all deeply. Exodus 34:14 puts it this way. It says, “He is the God Who is passionate about His relationship with you.” Well, God waiting for our reply…He’s waiting for us to say, “I love You too God!” And this is another form of worship that is pleasing to Him. As He says in Hosea 6:6, “I don’t want your sacrifices-I want your LOVE I don’t want your offerings-I want you to KNOW Me.” Richard Foster writes, “Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to Him. He grieves that we have forgotten Him…” And Foster is correct. Not only does God want our attention. He wants our affection.
He wants us to express our deep love FOR Him TO Him. Now what if a husband walked up to his wife and said, “Honey, here are some flowers for you. And I am giving you these flowers for three strategic reasons: Point No. 1, I am your husband. Point No. 2, it is our anniversary. Point No. 3, husbands are supposed to give their wives flowers on their anniversary. So here.” Sounds like something Mr. Spok would do!
Well would this wife be thrilled? No-and any husband who thinks so hasn’t been married long. She would not be pleased at all. In fact she would be offended and hurt because a wife wants her husband to love her passionately. She doesn’t want duty. She wants desire. And God is the same way. He doesn’t want our duty. He wants our desire. God doesn’t want – “Oh, okay. I better go worship.” “Oh, I love you, God…” No. He doesn’t want ritual and religion and rules and regulation. He wants a relationship. And He’s passionate about it!
Now-how do we do this? How do we express our affection for God? Well, saying it is good-or singing it as we have done already this morning. But I think another way to express our love for God is by just saying “thanks.”
Wednesday of this week I was taking Sarah to school and it was a dark cloudy overcast morning.
But, as I pulled out of Magruder, the sun came up UNDER the overcast sky such that it painted the bottom of those dark clouds red. It was so beautiful….that I just blurted out, “THANK YOU GOD! That is spectacular. I love Your creative power God. Thank You for loving me enough to give me eyes to see something this beautiful!”
I would encourage you to do the same. To express your affection for Him, THANK HIM. Thank him for your family and for your country and for your church and for His Son! Join with the Psalmist and, “Give THANKS to the Lord for He is good! His LOVE endures forever!” (Psalm 107:1) In fact, right now let’s do that…each of you think of one thing to thank God for and on the count of three let’s say it together. “Thank You God for…ONE…TWO…THREE…” Now, that’s expressing affection to God! That makes God feel loved! And this leads us to our third point…because the best way to express affection to God is the third form of worship, which is…
3. …Using our ABILITIES for God.
This is what Jesus meant when He said we are to love God with ALL our strength. With these words our Lord was literally saying that we are to do everything as an offering of worship to God-ALL our abilities are to be used in ways that we know would make Him proud. You see, the truth is genuine worshipers see every task of every day as an opportunity to worship God so they do everything as if they were doing it for Him. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.”
And Romans 12:1 also teaches this principle. I love The Message paraphrase which puts it like this, “Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, your eating, your going to work,
your walking around life — and place it before God” — as a what? — “an Offering.” There’s that word again. Remember? We said to OFFER BACK to God is the essence of genuine worship.
You know, real purpose-driven living doesn’t happen in a church. It doesn’t happen in a Sunday School class. It doesn’t even happen in your personal quiet time with God every day. No…it happens in the ordinary, routine, mundane, things of real life done for the Glory of God. It happens at work…and as you drive to work. It happens as you go to school….as you do your homework…as you chat in computer chat rooms. WORSHIP is EVERYTHING….we do…doing everything for God. It’s obeying HIS will in every area of life.
Mark Twain once encountered a businessman from Boston during his travels that said, “Before I die, I will go to the Holy Land and when I get there I’m going to climb Mt. Sinai. And from the top I will shout, each of the Ten Commandments at the top of my voice.” Unimpressed, Twain responded, “I’ve got a better idea. STAY in Boston, and OBEY the Ten Commandments!” Well I would agree with Twain because the true God-pleasing worship is a life-style. As J. C. Ryle said, “The best public worship is that which produces the best private Christianity.”
You know I do about 6-8 weddings a year on the average and I consider it a great privilege to be a part of these events as a man and a woman joyfully follow God’s will into matrimony. Like most pastors I require pre-marital counseling and in that time with the couple I often point out that weddings are easy-where as staying married is extremely difficult. I tell them this because couples understandably want to plan a wedding service, but I want to help them plan a marriage.
They want to know where the bridesmaids are going to stand. I want to help them learn where to stand when their relationship undergoes the inevitable stress that comes when two people share their lives. Now, I can do a wedding in about twenty minutes with my eyes closed. But a marriage takes year after year of wide-eyed attention.
Don’t misunderstand me. Weddings are important. They are beautiful, impressive, emotional, and sometimes expensive. We need to be careful to be at the right place at the right time and to say the right words. Every detail of the service is important….but all the same WEDDINGS really are easy.
MARRIAGE on the other hand is often complex and difficult. You see, it’s in marriage that we work out every detail of the words and the promises and the commitments that we speak at the wedding. In marriage we develop the long, rich life of faithful love that the wedding promises and announces. And, the EVENT of the wedding without the LIFE of the marriage doesn’t amount to very much. You see, if there is no DAILY love shared…no CONTINUAL tenderness…no forgiveness asked for and received…no ATTENTIVE listening…no creative giving….no LIFESTYLE of blessing each other as husband and wife…..well then the wedding service will have been a sham and the marriage will be an empty charade.
I point this out because in the same way, if WORSHIP does not translate into a changed life, where we LOVE GOD WITH ALL OUR STRENGTH…in EVERYTHING WE DO…then it too is a sham. As Russell Shedd says, “The New Testament projects a vision of worship that infuses ALL OF LIFE with the presence and glory of God.” You see, God is not as much interested in the activities of WORSHIP as He is in the ACTIONS of life-as Paul says in Romans 12, “….this is the most spiritual act of worship.” Christians who want to experience genuine worship respond on Sundays’ as did Isaiah by saying, “Here I am send me….take my life and accept it as an offering to You. Use it as You see fit.”
Invitation: And that is why we close each time of corporate worship as we do…by singing a hymn during which we encourage people to worship by giving all their ABILITIES-all their lives…to God. As we sing let’s all give God our attention-let’s ask Him if there is any part of our lives that we need to offer to Him this morning….any part of our day-to-day existence. God may be calling you to dedicate your marriage to Him….or your parenting…or your career…or your relationships with neighbors. He may be leading you to join this church, giving Him your life to use here in helping us fulfill our purpose as a local body of believers. Or…you may be here this morning and are not a Christian and you realize that you have never experienced true worship.
Well, this is because we cannot worship…we cannot commune with God unless we do so through Jesus. Ephesians 3:12 says, “For through Him we have access to the Father by one Spirit. And having come through Christ, we can approach God with confidence. Hebrews 10:19 says, We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.” If this describes you then I urge you to come now and offer your life to God…commit to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord.
As we sing, I encourage you to continue to worship by responding as God leads.