A Call to Worship

Genesis chapter 22 and we're going to go back to Abraham just for a second. Genesis 22 and verse number 5. Genesis 22 and 5 says, And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass or with the donkey and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. The reason I want to read that is as far as I know that's the first time we read of the word worship in our Bible.

Turn with me if you will now to the New Testament and we're going to go to John chapter 4, the Gospel of John in chapter 4 and verse number 23. We know the account of what's going on here. Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well and verse number 23 he tells her this, For the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

For the Father seek the such to worship him. God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Now turn with me over to Romans chapter 12.

Romans chapter 12 and verse number 1. I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service or act of worship and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may approve what it that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And that's all we'll read and we'll make mention to other portions of scripture as we go along. Hopefully with the help of God I can tie together everything that we have already been brought before us this morning and this afternoon.

I thought everything flowed well together and hopefully I can continue that. And if I were to put a title over my message it would be simply this, a call to worship. A call to worship.

So what does worship mean? That's the first thing we have to define. I think a lot of times when we think about worship and I ask the question what is worship? Most of the time what we would think of our mind automatically goes to the breaking of bread and we would say this is worship and this is true this is a form of worship but worship goes so much farther and so much greater than just simply the breaking of bread. Because a lot of times what happens on a Sunday morning is you have men, brother after brother that will get up and they will give God thanks for his son and what he did for them on the cross of Calvary.

But then if I ask you what is praise you would tell me it's thanking God for what he did for me on the cross of Calvary. So praise and worship are linked together and yet a lot of times when we look at it we sometimes I think just can almost confuse them and think that worship stops simply at the breaking of bread that that is worship. So let's just lay out some definitions if we can when it comes to praise and worship.

The definition for praise is simply this it is an outward expression of admiration gratitude or exaltation for God and for his attributes his works or character. It focuses on proclaiming God's greatness through verbal and musical means. We've been hearing about a song right so there we would have worship but we would refer to as worship on a Sunday morning but that's the definition for praise.

So what is worship? Praise a lot of times when we think of praise is spontaneous or joyful and it emphasizes celebration. Psalm 150 1 through 6 the last chapter of the Psalms gives us beautiful thoughts of praise and it ends with this let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord praise you the Lord. And when we come on a Sunday morning we bring our praise and our worship to him and they are linked and yet there is differences between the two.

Early scholars and early men that studied the Bible like Augustine even said words like this when it came to praise they saw praise as an act of the heart and voice glorifying God's names and deeds open in communal and individual expressions of joy. So then what is worship? Worship is deeper. Worship goes beyond just the physical getting up on a Sunday morning and giving God thanks for his son.

Now I'm not giving you an excuse not to do that. I think we all as men if you are part of a fellowship wherever you are when you came into that assembly you have been given a privilege but also a responsibility and part of the responsibility is to take part on the Lord's Day and in other aspects of the assembly but worship goes so much farther than just simply the outward getting up because we can be reminded when we come to Matthew chapter 15 and there the Lord Jesus is speaking and he's talking to them he says Isaiah says well of you that your lips are your mouth you know they worship me but your heart is far from me so we can get up on a Sunday morning and how many times if we're honest with ourselves do we get up on a Sunday morning and our words worship him but our heart is far from him and we're not thinking about him we are not in all of him because we have so many other things that are taking up our time in our affections so when it comes to worship worship yes is a thought of praise and giving thanks but it is deeper the definition for worship is deeper and often is more of a reverent act of submission or adoration or devotion to God acknowledging his sovereignty his holiness it is a posture of humility and surrender we come to Isaiah chapter 6 and there we of course know the account when it says in the year of of the king I the Lord I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple and he is in all of him but when you come to the end of that account what does he say I'm a man of unclean lips and yet he says here I am send me and so it's a devotion it's a life that is being devoted to the Lord as we look down through it I thought it was interesting as I looked at this and thought of this when the first time we read of worship our brother skates this morning as he worked through the life of Abraham he mentioned different altars that he built but I think one of the first times if I'm not mistaken of we reading of him going to put something upon an altar is when it comes to Genesis chapter 22 this long for promise of God and now he comes and it's a sacrifice and it's a personal sacrifice that he now offers to the Lord how many altars have we put up for the Lord in our lives and we do things outwardly but our heart is far from him how many times have we offered ourselves as a sacrifice to God Romans chapter 12 and verse 1 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God which is not your extraordinary not your extraordinary but your reasonable act of worship see when we come to our New Testament we read of the word worship a lot less but you know what I found interesting and studying this out is I found that many times when you come to the word service or the word serve in our New Testament we learn this that when we look it up and we look at what the original word meant the thought was worship when you were serving you worship you go to our Old Testament and many times as many times as you would read praise and worship together you read of worship and service together equal amount of times worship and service even when God is rebuking the children of Israel in the Old Testament when they were fallen into idolatry as we heard about from our brother Gordon and there's idolatry in our own life when they fell into idolatry and they were worshipping other gods he says you don't worship and serve them serve came right behind worship if you're worshipping it you're serving it so what in our life are we serving because that might tell us what we're worshipping if we're serving the things of time and sense we just might be worshipping the things of time and sense if we're worshipping or serving our career and our boss is more than we're serving God that might be the thing that we're worshipping whether we want to admit it or not service and worship are linked together and so when I asked you the question and why put over this message a title a call to worship is not simply just a call that tomorrow morning wherever you break bread whether here in Ankeny or back home in your home assembly that worship goes so far greater than that it's not just a call for you to sit in the circle and to worship but it's to go out from that circle and to live a life of service for God I present you should present your bodies a living sacrifice worship see when Abraham went up into that mountain he said I and the lad we will go yonder and worship and we'll come again he had full expectation that his son was going to come back with him but he also had full expectation of taking his son his only son whom he loved Isaac and he was going to give a personal sacrifice it was going to cost him something when is the last time we have done something of service to God that cost us something when is the last time that we have put our shoulder to the wheel and it cost us more than just an hour and a half on a Sunday morning and it took time and it took energy energy and effort and sometimes like a brother Baker just reminded us we don't always see the results automatically and right away because when it comes to flash that's easy and that's sometimes why I think we worship the things of time and sense because we get results so quickly if I put my shoulder to the wheel at work I can work my way up in a business fairly fast if I pay attention to detail there I can see the results quickly but sometimes sometimes when it comes to our life of worship a life devoted to God sometimes we don't see the results Lord I've been trying to devote my life as much as I can and I'm seeing no results why do I continue to serve why do I continue to worship and our song goes away we begin to lose the joy of the Lord that is our strength we began to lose our praise and our worship thought it was interesting when we think of praise praise does not always imply submission it can just simply be an expression of gratitude without full devotion right if I if I wrote you out a check for $1,000 and gave it to you before you walked away from here you probably say thank you right automatic response in fact sometimes we teach our kids we'll take our kids somewhere right somebody has this over for lunch you sit down and they bring out broccoli as one of the the things that the kids have to eat and in my youngest that's the one thing he will spot in a casserole from a mile away broccoli then at the end of the meal we tell him say thank you thank you he said it but it wasn't the gratitude right it wasn't it can simply be things that we do and sometimes I think that's exactly what we do and we walk away and I think that's why so many times we go throughout our Christian life and we think that we are doing what was required of us when we say we are to worship God we say we do worship him I'm there every Sunday morning what do you do the rest of your life what do you do the rest of your week we've already been exhorted with the fact that how many times the first time that we open our Bible that day or maybe that week sometimes is when we walk inside the gospel hall and we sit down and our brother says let's read how is it possible that we can live a life for him if we know nothing of him when it came to Abraham he heard a voice God spoke to him you will never hear I doubt you will ever hear an audible voice from the Lord right so how do you know what he wants you to do and when he wants you to move and where he wants you to go how can you know his will if you know nothing of him and that's why in Matthew he says these people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me they worship me in vain the next verse says and this is not the King James this is CSB so don't shoot me teaching as doctrines human commandments teaching as doctrines human commandments there's many times I believe where the reason we think that worship simply means on a Sunday morning you come and you break bread and then you can go away is it's almost like when we think of worship that's all we've been taught but worship goes so much greater and so much farther it's a life that is devoted it's a life of sacrifice I present to you this plea that you would live your life as a holy sacrifice acceptable unto God for it is your reasonable act of worship so how can we worship him if we don't know who he is and what he requires of us James chapter 2 and verse 27 says pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is this to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and they keep himself unspotted from the world I looked up the word religion as we would all say we are not religious we are Christians so what does the word religion mean one of the definitions for this word in our Greek is pure worship undefiled before God is to visit the fatherless that sounds like service and the widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world that sounds like a life devoted that sounds like a life laid upon an altar that sounds like a call to worship Deuteronomy chapter 10 verses 20 and 21 says thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and him shalt thou serve and to him shalt thou cleave and swear by his name he is thy praise he is thy God that had done for thee this great and terrible thing with thine which thine eyes have seen to fear the Lord's I looked up that word I thought well in the New Testament the word serve oftentimes you mean worship what about in the Old Testament we find the same thing they that fear the Lord thy God him shalt thou worship worship and service go hand in hand yes worship and praise are linked together but worship and service are equally linked so don't think that simply by coming on a Sunday morning and living your whole life and saying I've never missed a breaking of bread as long as I've been in fellowship and if that's the only thing you do I would say good I'm glad you never missed it but there's so much more when it comes to worship it's a life of service it's a life devoted to the things of God I was reminded as our brethren were speaking this morning about a man that is known throughout the world has now gone home to glory and when he was a student in college his professor Jay Edwin or took his students on a field trip and they visited the house of John Wesley and when they went through the house of John Wesley and he was showing them the different rooms they came to his bedroom our brother Frank was reminding us the need of prayer and they're worn into the floor beside that bed were two knee prints where John Wesley prayed for revival and he told him those knee prints are there because he spent so many hours there that he wore spots in the floor when it was time to leave the students all loaded up and the professor counted and he was one short he went back through that house and finally found the man the young man in the bedroom on his knees and these were the words that he was praying do it again Lord do it again and would you do it with me and that man was Billy Graham for all the things you can say about Billy Graham the things he might not have done right he was a man that sought to live his life devoted to God would you do it again and would you do it with me I think when it comes to revival I think many times that we're all together happy to read about it we don't be all together happy to see it but we don't want to really put our shoulder to the wheel and sacrifice our time and our effort and our life for it I love to see it I love to maybe even get to experience a little bit of it and to read as many books about it as I can but can I offer my life as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God because it is reasonable for me why is it reasonable you would say it's reasonable to thank me for the thousand dollar check is it not reasonable to live your life for someone who died for you if I gave you a piece of gum and you went the rest of your life and told everybody you know the greatest man I ever met was David Yoder because he gave me a piece of gum once everybody think you were cuckoo but what if I gave you my heart because yours was failing and then you went the rest of your life and he told everybody David Yoder donated his heart to me so I could live nobody really think you were cuckoo for that the one that is asking you to lay down your life the one that says pure worship undefiled before God and the Father if he asked you to lay down your life because he laid down his life would you not do it so maybe simply just to tie together if I can all the messages that we heard this morning and today we were reminded of Samson we reminded that he was more in his death than in his life and I was reminded of the Christian life a devoted life is a dead life to this world be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind are you willing to die in this life so that you can be greater in the next and a life lived for God a life devoted to him dead to this world but alive in Christ a death in this world can lead to a revival in this life altars that were built are you willing to sacrifice yourself upon the altars to lay down your life and devotion to him a life devoted to Christ as a brother Armstrong has reminded us is a life of faith you will not lay down your life for your God unless you have faith in your God can't do it and even when we don't know how it's going to happen and even as sisters you would say what we come how do we know we're sisters are worshiping we never hear on a Sunday morning that we say we worship silently I think we can see sisters that are living a life of worship outside of the circle that's how we know sisters are worshiping by the lives that they live and how they conduct themselves we reminded of Sarah in the life that she left you know what we're reminded of a song that our Savior gave us and even when it's difficult in our life to worship and to serve him there's time where you're gonna run into things in your life and it's going to make you wonder why Lord know what we have to remind ourselves sometimes and it becomes hard to worship is simply this brother McCandless told us of the fact that we should end our lives with song in our mouth but sometimes we become so anxious and so maybe depressed with the things of this life and what has occurred that we can barely worship I thought it was interesting that there was a university that recently did a study and this was the conclusion they reached a person cannot be both anxious and depressed and grateful at the same time so yes praise him yes worship him and yes serve him a call to worship for he is worthy of our devotion