I Will, Worship

Last week we learned about attitudes and we learned that: Our attitudes determine our success to forge our future more than any factor in life.” We learned that unity only works when individuals have made a decision to pursue it with thier whole heart. And then we finished our time together by learning what attitude killers are, and what attitude builders are. Attitude plays such an important part in our walk with God because I’ve never met a holy Christ filled christian with a poor attitude.

Never! “I have” met christians with the right attitude that says, I am a sacrificial Church member. Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 2, verses 3-5: “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross.” We are to have the attitude of Christ, the sacrificial attitude that took him to death on cross.

My challenge for you last week was to work on your attitude. Why? Because the things God is going to teach us over the next few weeks will just go in one ear and out the other if you have a poor attitude. This week, I want us with the right attitude to look at worship. Now, What is worship? Worship flows from the heart in recognition and response to the magnificence of Christ, and because of an understanding of the grace found solely in the gospel.

In other words, it’s not just walking in God’s omnipresence, it’s witnessing and recognizing his presence first hand, as the presence of Christ manifests himself in our life through daily adoration and affection for him. And that kind of worship is lived tangibly in two ways. Vertical worship and horizontal worship. Vertical worship is lived out in a practical, tangible way, when we embrace the truth of the gospel and embrace the relationship we have with the Holy Spirit.

That’s upward worship. But we’re never called to do this alone. So we have the second part of tangible worship and it’s the horizontal worship. Horizontal worship responds to the majesty of God or vertical worship, through Christ presences manifesting himself in me as we experience with other believers as well. That means we collectively come together to be the body of Christ. This is what we call corporate worship. Or in other words, we call this going to church.

I want to dive into that vein for a moment. What does church look like? Well, lets open our bibles up and can I have at least two people read, using two different versions of Acts chapter 2: verses 46-47. ( Read ) Would you say, that’s going to church! What do we see in this Scripture about worship and the church body? Well first, we need to realize that they were devoted to this practice.

Think about it, We devote ourselves too a lot of things. We devote ourselves to our jobs. We devote ourselves to professional sports teams. My friend has a room filled with steeler things. There s dentist in town that has a room filled with steeler things, and not only that they drive around a steelers pickup. We’re devoted in relationships. We hear things like, he is a devoted Father, or she’s a devoted Mother.

What does devoted truly mean? Well, the dictionary says that devoted means they someone is “very” loving and loyal. It means these early christians were consistently faithful, and steadfast in being together. So these early christians devoted themselves into what they were practicing. They didn’t gather to just check off the box for some legalistic faith for a distant tyrant God. No, listen, this devotion was an attitude of unity. Remember, what I said last week, Unity only works when individuals have made a decision to pursue it with their whole heart.

I can’t make you come here. I can’t make you have joy to be here. My prayer is that you will desire to be here. Not just because the door is open. Not because this is where you’ve been coming for years. But because your gather with others and worshiping God together in unity with those who are here. So, what is my responsibility as a worshipper? Well, it’s realizing that God is inviting us daily to enjoy him.

I think about Isaiah in chapter 61 where he says, I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. ISAIAH 61:10 (NIV) My responsibility is to daily enjoy God. God loves you and he wants to enjoy you just as much as we should want to enjoy him.

That’s why Romans chapter 12 is such an amazing Scripture and I like to read it from the message translation, because it really helps me understand how my life is to be in constant worship. So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. I was chewing on those last words yesterday morning…

“God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” If God is bringing the best out of me, I get the privilege of giving the best back to God, in praise. It’s like, As Paul says in Romans 7:18, “Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” Jesus tells us, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” But, I’m not apart from Jesus. I’m abiding in Christ!

By faith, through grace, I abide… in Him. John 15:5 says “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” What is the first fruits that I bear in a life in union with Christ? It’s my praise, it’s my thanksgiving, its our Christ centered adoration for the Father. Jesus prays for us to be one with him and the Father, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” We worship God by enjoying him with our whole hearts, soul, mind and strength. C. S. Lewis said, “In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him.” God wants our worship to be motivated by love, thanksgiving, and delight, not duty. Did you know you can brush you teeth in an act of worship.

You can wash dishes as an act of worship. You can blow your nose in an act of worship… it’s true.. Im telling you, you’ll never blow your nose again once you learn to worship…..think about it. Every time you blow your nose, it’s a mini shofar horn. You can love your wife or you can love your husband as an act of worship. Think about that for a moment… how different would our marriages be, or let’s just say this for those who are not married.

How different would our marriages be and our relationships with others be, if every interaction we had with one another we did so as an act of worship to God. What if serving, and loving, and being forgiving, being helpful, having self control, and self sacrifice were ways we worship God while we act towards others. Christians everyday are missing opportunities to worship in their everyday life. Worship is a lifestyle of God bringing the best out of us, and maturing us into the likeness of Christ, so that everything we do, and everything we say brings glory to the Father.

Worship is far more than praising, singing, and praying to God. Worship is a lifestyle of enjoying God, loving him, and giving ourselves to be used for his purposes. Because when you use your life for God’s glory, everything you do becomes an act of worship. And the beauty about this truth is, that God strengthens us these moments of worship. Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (NIV). How many times have you gotten up and said, man I'm too tired for church? I don’t feel like going to church today. But then, when you did come and worshipped with others, You find yourself energized. Have you ever seen the movie Rocky? As a pastor, sometimes I think of myself like the coach in the boxing movie Rocky.

Rocky is out there in the fight, and he’s pouring his heart out and just getting beat to a pulp. The bell rings and he goes, “Thank God.” He comes to the corner, and the coach says, “You’re doing a good job.” The coach throws some water on him, pats him on the back, and says, “Now get back out there.” Sometimes I feel like that’s what I’m doing on Sunday for the church.

I’m telling people, “You’re doing a good job. Now get back out there. You can do this!” But that’s not me renewing people’s strength. It’s the Word of God. It’s songs of praise we sing with our hearts and praying together and worshiping together with other believers that renews us. These means of worship brings us hope. The Bible says in Psalm 73:16-17, “When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; We gain spiritual strength when we gather together to worship God.

It should be fun to come to church. You and I and other people should enjoy being here. I told Alicia last week, “Man today was so amazing. We prayed, worshipped, proclaimed God’s word, and then not one person bolted for the door at the end. We sat around the table and ate with one another and shared life with one another.” That was, "back to the roots”, first century church being lived out in the 21st century.

And there was something we shared that we can see in the life of the early church… If we go back to acts chapter 2, after being devoted to one another, the second thing we witness with the early christians, was that they had deeply rooted with joy. You see, when we rightly enjoy God, we can rightly enjoy being with one another. This is why Jesus says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Deeply rooted worship is us enjoying God while also enjoying being in the presence of others that God brings into our life.

So how can we make corporate worship more meaningful? Well, first, have the attitude of, I will attend worship. It’s actually that simple. It’s amazing how when we make worship a priority we’ll realize how much others will become a part of our family. And let us remember this, anything and everything will always be an excuse not to attend. I have a headache, I didn’t sleep well last night, I wasn’t feeling well.

I can tell you how many times I’ve gone to work not feeling well, or when I didnt get a lot of sleep, or some other issue. Why is my devotion to going to work, out weigh my devotion for coming to church? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to work with headaches, or being sick, or made no excuse to be there. We do that because we know we chant live the life we want without getting paid.

What if we took that principle and realized that we’re missing out on spiritual life? Many people are coming to church whenever they feel like it and wondering why their with is lacking. Make it a priority. I challenge you to see what happens when you make church worship a priority. See what happens when you make a firm commitment to be in church and watch what God does to your heart when you actually pursue to love him, and you actually pursue to love others.

Secondly, have the attitude of, I will pray before I attend worship service. Sometimes I will pray when I go to bed. Lord, I hope we together worship you rightly. Pray as you drive into church, “Lord, I pray that we sense your presence. Don’t let us gather and not meet you in some way.” Right? If you went to Hershey chocolate world and they didnt have chocolate would you go back?

I mean the whole point of going to Hershey chocolate world is to eat chocolate. Why would we even think about showing up to church without praying in your heart and asking and yearning for God’s presence to fill this room and people witnessing the manifest presence of God. Thirdly, I will pray as I enter the sanctuary. I want to pray for my own heart and attitude as I come to join with other people.

I’m gonna pray for others, and engage with others. When I hear a brother or sister say, Pray for me… I wont say, I will pray for you, but rather I will respond with, let’s pray now. I yearn to see prayer all over the sanctuary when I walk in. I’d love to show up to church and see pockets of people praying for one another, praying for the service, praying for our church and community.

This is supposed to be a house of prayer. Pray for the distractions to be removed. What’s distracting me from praying and being in worship. Dr. Manly said, how different would church be if the people would pray the Scripture as they sat at the feet of the pastor, hanging on to every word that God has laid on their heart. And lastly, I will pray that I will be a worshipper instead of a judge.

Too many times we leave corporate worship as if we just judged an olympic sport. The pastor went over, and he spoke about a sin that I am dealing with. So he gets a 4. The worship was ok, they sung well, but I was hoping for this song instead of that one. They get a 7. We look around the room and we see kids and other people checked out and on their cell phones, so we give them a 3, especially those people over there because they didn’t shake my hand before service.

Oh, and those people get a 1 because they sat in my seat. When we come in here with judgmental perceptions of worship, we’re not worshipping God. Instead we’re seeking church to be a place of entertainment. And entertainment is only designed to make me feel good. Not change my heart. That’s our challenge this week. Realize that we are a family. It’s time to ask God to get our hearts right so we desire to rightly worship him in this place.

It’s time to urge one another to make priority in coming and worshipping with us. Will you join me in this? Will you join me in changing from: I could or I might or I can or I should Would you change your attitude today, to, “I will” be a person of worship? *