Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
HomeSermonsThe Priority of Worship II

The Priority of Worship II

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Worship Is Important to God

the focus being the priority of worship to God. In other words, worship is important to the Lord. Amen. And we actually mentioned seven things. Can you repeat them? No, because you forgot them already. I understand. What we learned last week is that God is seeking worshipers. Now notice here in this passage Jesus says that the true worshipers worship in spirit and truth And he doesn’t just say God is seeking worshippers, but rather he said he’s seeking such worshipers.

He’s seeking those who will worship in this way, in a spirit of truth and in a spirit of sincerity.

So God is seeking worshipers, which tells us that worship is important to him. Also, throughout the scripture, He repeatedly commands us to worship Him. We looked at the first and second commandment last week. He exhorts us to worship. We learned from the Word of God that He is pleased with proper worship. He is displeased with improper worship. We also reminded ourselves that worship is so important to God that He gave us a whole book of the Bible called the Psalms on worship. He gave us a worship book, if you will. And the last point we made last week was that worship is important to God because He is glorified and honored by proper worship. So for all of these reasons, worship is a biblical priority, which is another way of saying worship is important to the Lord, especially worship that is in spirit and in truth. And having said that, we need to also remind ourselves that worship is for us, or to us.

Worship Is Good for Us

It should be important to us, but it is important for us. And that is our focus today, the priority of worship for us. Now before I say anything else about the importance of worship for, excuse me, the and for the Christian, I need to throw out a caveat there. And the caveat is this, is that it’s very easy to get real subjective about worship because it’s a very personal thing. But what I mean by that is it’s very easy to get into a frame of mind where you evaluate the quality of worship by your own personal experience. You know what I’m saying? So I actually hear people say after church, well, is worship good? What they’re often saying is, did you get something out of it? Did you have an encounter with God? It’s a valid question. But we have to be very careful in evaluating worship by our own [audio unclear] What makes worship good is God honored and glorified. That’s the question. The question is, when I worship Him or when we as a community worship God, the question we have to ask ourselves primarily, not the only question, there are many questions about worship to be discussed, but the primary question in evaluating worship is that we have to ask ourselves, evaluating worship is that we have to ask ourselves the question, is God pleased? Is He pleased? Because if God is pleased by my worship, then the worship is good. It’s good because His assessment is the true assessment. If God says this worship is good, it’s good. Now, if you’ve walked with the Lord for any length of time, you know that you have your good days and your bad days, right? You have your good Sundays and your bad Sundays. Sometimes you go to church and you feel the Lord’s presence and the word is alive and the worship is alive and everything’s wonderful and you’re on cloud nine. You come back the next week and you’re like, there’s a dark cloud over you. And a lot of times it’s beyond your control. And you can go to a church service and have an experience where it’s just to you, there’s you didn’t get anything out of it, and you think, well, I guess God’s [audio unclear] primarily for us because we’re a very me-focused generation, right?

And so we turn church into, what do I get out of it? That’s what church is about. It’s about my benefit. It’s about my growth. Well, it’s primarily about the honor and worship of God. He’s first. That’s the great commandment, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, That’s the first commandment, the second is about us and about our neighbor. So we have to keep that order in mind as we talk about the priority of worship as it relates to us. God says worship is important. a priority to him if it is done in a way that honors him and glorifies him. For that reason alone, it should be important to us. But it’s also important to us for other reasons. And then I’m going to mention a few this morning. The first reason worship is a priority is because when we worship the Lord, it is an act of obedience, an act of obedience. Now this is a logical corollary or deduction from the fact that we saw last week that God repeatedly commands and exhorts us to worship Him. He tells us over and over and over to do this. So when we worship the Lord, especially when we worship the Lord in spirit and truth, we are obeying the Lord. We’re doing what the Lord tells us to do. And there’s a very simple principle I’ve learned over the years. Excuse me. I’ve known the Lord for 40 years. It’s this, obedience brings blessing. It’s a very simple principle. It’s always true. Now at the moment, it might not feel like you’re getting blessed. Because sometimes obedience means choosing the hard path, right? Jesus said the way of life can be narrow, the way of life can be hard. But in the long run, and over time, the path of obedience is always the path of blessing. It always is. And so we have to understand that when we focus our attention on worship and we set our hearts on God and we truly attempt through the power of His Spirit to worship Him in an appropriate way. We are obeying His word and that act of obedience is good for us. Now yeah it glorifies Him but it’s good for us. Obedience is always good. Always. And if we had time I could give you a whole sermon on the blessings of obedience. But obedience brings light, the Word of God tells us, because the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which gets brighter and brighter. As you obey the Lord, you see more and more. You get more and more light. As God gives you light, you respond, He gives you more light. The path of the righteous is bright and it gets brighter and brighter. The path of obedience brings joy. It brings joy. It says it is, well, there’s different translations of this psalm, but it basically says that The just, it is joy to the just to do to do justice. It brings joy to them to do what is right. A lot of Christians are unhappy and they’re unhappy because they’re living in sin and they don’t even realize it. The problem is a lack of obedience. As we obey God, although at first it might be hard, it brings joy in our lives. Obedience brings fellowship with God. I want us to read John 14 in the light of our topic of worship. Turn to John 14 for a moment. This is a well, well-known passage where Jesus is really talking about fellowship with Him and fellowship with Him after He’s ascended through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He says in John 14, verse 15, he says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Or it could be translated, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. It depends. But he says, I will pray the Father, and he will give you another comforter or helper, that he, it’s the Spirit, right, who will buy with you forever the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because another sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.“ Well, how does Jesus come to us? He’s coming. He comes to us through his spirit. Although he was leaving, he’s saying, I’m coming. What? How can you leave and come? Well, because I’m leaving, I’m sending the spirit who is the other or another comforter or his strengthener. And through his ministry and his person, I will be with you. A little while longer and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, you will live also at that day. You will know that I am in the father and you and me and I, and you, and he who has my commandments and keeps them. It is he who loves me and he loves me will, be loved by my father. Excuse me. And I will love him and reveal myself to him. And Judah said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. So as we do as God commands us to do, it brings this blessing of…

Obedience brings this blessing of a deeper communion and fellowship with the Lord. And this is true of worship. As we engage in worship in a way that is proper, in a way that is biblical, Lord then honors that worship. He honors our obedience. And he says here that as we obey Him, He comes and He dwells with us. So we have fellowship with the Lord in our obedience and in our worship. A second reason worship is important for us is that we are called to witness to God’s greatness.

Worship as Witness

We are called to witness to His greatness. In 1 Peter 2, if you’d like to turn there, Peter’s talking about the calling of the high and holy calling of the church. And in 1 Peter 2, he says this, he says, you, verse 9, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. I like the King James, says a peculiar people, because a lot of Christians I know are pretty peculiar, you know. you. Now notice this, he says we’re this chosen royal priesthood. I mean the things the Lord is saying about his church are astounding if you think about what he’s saying, who we are. Then he says, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. [audio unclear] Remember the Great Commission? No? Did you guys not have your Starbucks today? [audio unclear] The psalmist says, I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth. Yes, I will praise Him among the multitude. For He will stand at the right hand of the poor to save Him from those who condemn Him. So notice David is saying he will worship the Lord physically with his mouth. He will express his worship. And there is a private and even a silent form of worship. But I will, praise the Lord with my mouth, I will sing, but I will do it in front of other people. Psalm 111. Praise the Lord, verse 1, I will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. God’s people. Psalm 95. Verse 1, it says, O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to Him with Psalms. For great, for the Lord Jehovah is the great God, the great King above all gods. Amen.

Don’t you just want to say hallelujah? Amen.

It’s so good. In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His for He made it. And His hands formed the dry land. come let us worship and bow down let us kne, before the Lord our Maker for He is our God. We are His people the sheep of His pasture. This is a call to come together for corporate worship to declare that God is a king, to declare that God is great. And as we do this we are witnessing to who God is. So evangelism therefore is a form of, I mean, I can’t speak — explain. Worship is a form of evangelism. That’s what I’m trying to say. So we need to be conscious of this as we worship. Now again, let me go back to my opening comments. I don’t know about you, but when I come and I gather with all of you, and I love you all, I come and we worship the Lord. I’m not primarily thinking about you. Don’t take that personally.

I’m not even necessarily thinking about anyone here that walks in the door I might not know. I’m not primarily thinking about that. I’m primarily thinking about the Lord. That’s what I’m really focused on. But having said that, we do need to remember that what we do in front of others influences which is death. For good or bad. And what we do in our worship affects the unbeliever if the unbeliever is in our assembly. If a non-Christian walks in here and we are worshiping the Lord, and you’re looking at your phone, and you’re doing texting, and you’re, you know, we’re in the news, and you’re not worshiping the Lord, then you have witnessed to the non-Christian, you have witnessed to him, and you have made a statement to him about the value of the God that you worship. It’s just true. You’re witnessing, witnessing through your worship. And so, if we are focused on the Lord, and we are intent on Him, as David says, I’m going to awake my glory, I’m going to focus my heart and mind, I’m going to be relenting. I’m going to be serious about this because a serious thing here and we are intent on on really worshiping the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength that is a witness and people see that like wow these people must really love God maybe there’s something to this God that they worship that they’re so intent upon him that they love him so much and as I’ve said before I have heard testimonies of people being saved because of the witness of worship. Third point, worship is important to us because in worship we build up the church. We build up the church. Ephesians 5, if you want to turn there. I know we’re jumping around but we’re topical today and not expository. In Ephesians, Paul says this in chapter 5, in verse 18 he says, and do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and songs singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God or the fear of Christ. Colossians 3, similar passage in verse 16, Paul says, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do In word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” So you see in both of these passages how as we worship, we’re worshiping the Lord, but we are also ministering to the body. We are singing Psalms and hymns, and we are teaching and admonishing one another in that worship. And we’re building one another up in the faith. The great Puritan author Stephen Charnock said, public worship keeps up the memorials of God in a world prone to atheism and a sense of God in a heart prone to forgetfulness. Fire increases by bringing together many coals in one place. So is devotion inflamed by the union of many hearts and by a joint presence. So our corporate worship then is a form of exhortation to one another.

Building One Another Up

And so we’re building one another up in our worship. And Jude reminds us to build one another up in our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.

Personal Edification

Fourthly, worship is important because it’s a means of personal edification. Not only am I building up others in the faith through my worship, I’m building up myself. My worship may influence other people, for good or bad, hopefully for good, but it also influences myself. Because in my worship, I’m doing several things, and one of the things I’m doing is I am remembering what God says about himself. I’m reminding myself. You should do a word study on the word remember and on the word forget or forgetfulness in the Bible. It is astounding how often God exhorts his people to remember, or he reproves them for forgetting. Now, we can forget something and remember it at the same time. Like what? What? Are you playing word games with me? No, what I mean is this. You know, we Christians, we have, you know, know, Christianese, like the unofficial language. So we talk in phrases. Well, God’s on his throne. Well, all things are for good. We have Christian slang. Just take that phrase, God is on his throne.

We throw that out like, pass the butter. God’s on his throne, pass the butter. God’s on his throne. God’s ruling. God’s governing my life. Everything that happens to me comes according to God’s will, whether directive or permissive. God really rules. He’s ruling the chaos in the world. He’s ruling the chaos in our community of Ferguson right now. God is governing the world. Do I believe this when I say, past the butter, God’s on the throne? In one sense, we remember, but in another sense, we forget. You don’t know what I’m saying? Because we know so much that we don’t know. In other words, we know this many things theoretically, but we’re not walking in the reality of it necessarily. And we need to be reminded of who God is. We need to be reminded that He really has a throne and He really is sitting on it. No matter what your situation is, God is governing and your situation is not just the result of random cause, it’s not just the result of other people’s ill will, it’s not the result of whatever secondary causes are operating. God is intimately involved in your situation. So much so that Jesus said that every hair on your head is counted and not even a sparrow falls from the sky without the Heavenly Father. Remember that. We need to remember that God is holy. Remember that when you’re tempted to sin. Remember that God is holy. We need to remember that God is just. You know, I could do a long sermon on the stuff that’s happening around here, but I’m not going to, at least not today. But I know this. God is the God of justice. He cares about right. He cares about truth. He cares about the oppressed. And we need to remember that. We need to remind ourselves of this. And when we come and we worship, when we say these things and we declare these things and in these various Psalms and hymns that we sing, we are remembering what is true.

And it is so very important to remember what is true, what we say we know to really know it. I was having a conversation with someone the other day. I think it was Lawrence Jr. we were talking. He said, you know, there’s something about speaking the truth that has an effect on you. And I reminded him that in scripture there’s these odd verses. Let’s look at one. Go to Joshua. This is a footnote, so I’m getting off, by the way.

In the book of Joshua, you know, the Lord is promising Joshua and through him Israel victory, right? He says, verse 5, no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong enough to encourage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to your fathers to give them. May be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.“ And this is the odd verse. ”…This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.“ What does, it will not depart from your mouth. It’s not in my mouth. You could have said it won’t depart from your heart, or it won’t depart from your mind. Why does it say it won’t depart from your mouth? Because in that culture and in those days when people read, they did not read silently. They read out loud. So if you went into a little synagogue school and the children were studying the word and reading, you would hear this mild murmur, because they would all be reading, saying the words out loud. So that’s why he said, it won’t depart out of your mouth, you’ll always have my words. It’ll be in your mouth, because that’s how you read. And sometimes when I read the scripture, I read them out loud. And sometimes we just need to tell ourselves out loud that something is true. You just, you just need to say it, because it’s true. Not just think it, but you just need to say it. Now some people are thinking, uh oh, you doing that positive confession thing? No, I’m doing the biblical confession thing. Listen, every wrong doctrine is some connection to the truth somewhere. And so, the point here is that sometimes we just need to tell ourselves that something is true, because God says it’s true. And when we worship God, and I mean worship not just having a reverential attitude, but when we worship God, especially corporately, that’s exactly what we are doing. We are saying what is true. We are declaring what is true about God, about the world, about many things that are in the book of Psalms. We are saying these things are true, and this helps us to remember them, to remember them. And in the end, you’re going to forget Jesus rose from the dead. I mean, did he really think that Timothy forgot that? I mean, that’s like, did you forget to put your pants on when you walked out the door today? I mean, is any Christian going to forget Jesus rose from the dead? Well, not theoretically, but in practice. You hear me? In practice. In practice we forget that the Jesus we worship is not in the tomb. He’s risen from the dead. He’s defeated death Jesus has defeated sin Jesus is on a throne Jesus has given that power to his church and to his people the power of the Resurrection is the power that regenerated you when you were born again The power of the resurrection through the Holy Spirit abides in His people and that’s why you can have victory over sin because His Spirit in you gives life to your mortal body. Remember that! That’s what Paul is saying. Oh, I forgot that yesterday when I sinned. I forgot that when I gave in to temptation. I forgot I have resurrection power. Yes, we forget. We need to remember. That is why we come together and we declare these things are true. Not to make them true, they are true. It is to bring our minds and our hearts and our affectBTS in line with God’s Word.

Because thy Word is truth. Jesus said to the Father. So we remember that it builds us up, it edifies us, we set our minds, and it says in Colossians through 1, we set our not on things on the earth. The Bible exhorts us and commands us to be heavenly minded. Well how do we do that? We do that one way is we do that through worship. And we meditate on God’s glorious attributes. We meditate on the beauty of Jesus and his finished work. We meditate on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and we declare it. We’re setting our affections on things above, not on things on the earth. Paul the Bible tells us in Philippians 4 what things? Things that are honorable, things that are pure, things that are good, things that are just. Well, how do we do that? Well, in our worship, that’s exactly what we are doing. We are renewing our minds. We are renewing our affections. And so we are built up in the faith. I don’t know about you, but I mean, I shouldn’t say this because I’m a preacher, but there’s some days I don’t want to come to church. Okay, it’s out there. And any preacher that doesn’t admit that is a liar. Liar, liar. So you know, you have good days and bad days. But I am astounded still, after all these years of walking with the Lord, how I can be not doing great and how God uses worship to just set me right. I just wasn’t right in the head. And now I’m right. And sometimes part of that is I just have to say what is right? And I say, soul, awaken, soul, praise God, soul, I’m going to submit to the revelation of God in the Word. And God, I’m going to declare these things true of you because I know your word is true. Let me tell you this, folks. Do you believe the Bible? It’s radical.

I mean, if we believe this book, it is really radical. And there’s one thing I’m sure of. I’m not sure about all my doctrinal formulations, but I’m sure of this. This word is true. I’m sure that there is nothing that will ever convince me otherwise. I don’t know how people can read the Bible when I get the out of it. I open it up and it’s like, you ever see those at the beginning of a movie, sometimes a book opens up and all this light and sparkle and stars come out? That’s what it’s like. It’s like, whoa. Just open my Bible. Who, whoa. Light, power, glory comes flowing out of this thing. This is divine. This is supernatural. But sometimes I need to remind myself of that. You know, that hymn that we do sometimes, come now. The fountain. There’s a line in there. The Bible says, my heart is prone to wonder. Don’t you hate that? Don’t you hate when your heart just wonders? You don’t want your heart to wonder. acy And we declare and we assert and we’re saying, God, I agree with you. Next week, we’re gonna do a little more study about words in the Bible that are used for worship. Words like praise and bless. And one of the words, It simply means to confess. And the root idea of confession is to agree with. When I worship God, meaning in a biblical way, I’m agreeing with God whether I feel like it’s true. I’m agreeing. God, I’m agreeing with you when you say you are good. Just, holy, loving, kind, merciful. I’m agreeing with you. I might not feel like it right now, but I’m agreeing with you. And this builds us up. Last point, another reason worship is a priority for us, for the church, is that worship is a means of catechism. I was going to say catechesis, but that’s like what? Yeah, that’s the verb form.

Teaching the Next Generation

Look at Psalm 78. Psalm 78, give ear, O my people, to my law, and incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which you have heard and known. And our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from their children, telling them to the generation to come, the praises of the Lord, and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. For he has established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments. This is a worship psalm. We tell the next generation and we declare the next generation that God is good in our worship. Now there’s other ways we do it, but that’s one way that we do it. Psalm 145. Verse 1, I will extol you, my God and King. I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever. Great is Jehovah and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. Any amen to that? One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.” It’s saying that our worship is a means of catechesis in which we instruct our children, the next generation, and then they can instruct their children. So as we declare things about God, we are teaching. This is what we saw earlier. As we talk about worship as a means of edification to others, an edification to ourself, but it’s also a form of edification, or really instruction for the younger generation. This is why it is important, at least once a month, and sometimes on special occasions, we have the young children in the church service, for the whole service, [audio unclear] But you’re annoying me. Right? We’ve all been there, I’ve done that, and some of you are still doing it. I raised four kids. Trust me, I raised Hannah. So, but I want you, I want you parents, many of you have young children, I want the weight of this to hit you because you’re teaching in your worship, not just through what you’re declaring, but how you’re declaring it. And if your worship is unfocused, if your worship is apathetic, you are teaching your kids God’s not important. Now if you believe that, then what you’re displaying is the truth of you. I don’t believe you believe that. But I believe it’s very easy, and I’ve done it too, it’s very easy for us to become careless about things in the Christian life. Sometimes we become careless about prayer, sometimes we become careless about Bible study, sometimes we become careless about meditation, different aspects that we call the disciplines. Maybe you become careless about giving at different times. I get that, it happens. But we can become careless about our worship. But we We need to understand the impact of that, the potential impact of that.

I want my kids to know that I really love God. Now there’s many ways of showing that. One important way is how I worship Him. An exaltation to the parents is to be mindful. You are setting an example every Sunday. son and you set an example to your kids about what you think about God. And I, I exhort you to instruct them by your example that our God is a great God. And that you believe that that is so, that he is worthy of all of your heart, mind, soul and strength. Amen. That’s the message because if you’re a parent, I know you want your kids more than anything to love the Lord. Amen? Then we need to love the Lord.

Closing Prayer

So let’s stand together. Lord, we thank You so much for Your Word. We thank You so much for just Your great love for Your people. Lord, as I study and meditate on the subject of worship, I’m overwhelmed with your goodness.

That you come and meet us as we worship you. That you, one of the great promises, Lord, of the new covenant is that you will be our God and we will be your people and that you will be in our midst. Jesus, we are mindful of your word where you say, where two or three are gathered unto your name, that you are there in their midst. And Lord, just your condescension that you would do this, that you would come and fellowship with us is just mercy beyond anything we can contemplate. So we’re so thankful, we are so thankful for your goodness and your grace in your love and your mercy that you show us. We pray that our worship would build us up, Lord. We want to be built up in the faith so we can be better witnesses for you. But most of all, Lord, we pray that our worship would honor you and it will please you. I pray these things in your name. Amen.