Sermon Cloud

June 22, 2008

Garfield Community Church

Worship

Romans 12:1

Have you ever watched The Brady Bunch on television? My wife liked The Brady Bunch so much that the ring tone on her cell phone used to be The Brady Bunch theme song. There was an episode where Davey Jones (a cute young rock star of the late 60s and early 70s) came and sang at Marcia's prom. Have you seen it? If you can imagine, every time Davey is around any women, young or old, they get this far away dreamy look in their eyes. They are saying to themselves, if they can say anything at all, “Wow!”

How about a little boy with his dad? Have you ever seen how a little boy idolizes his dad? He wants to be like him. He wants to talk like him. He wants his dad to be proud of him. Anything his dad does is great and the little boy is in awe of his dad.

Webster's dictionary defines worship as: a) The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or a sacred object. b) The ceremonies, prayers, or other religious forms by which this love is expressed. c) Ardent devotion; adoration.

Who do we worship? This isn't a trick question. We worship God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit; all three in one.

Worship is a state of our heart. If we have a worshipful heart then our time with God, regardless of what we are doing, is worship.

Romans 12:1 says:

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (NKJV)

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. (NIV)

There are many ways we worship.

We worship in our Giving.

I had a friend tell me that when he went to Bible College, at this particular school, when they would take an offering everyone started hootin' and hollerin', clapping, and shouting praise to God while the offering baskets were passed. That was a result of hearts that wanted to worship God with everything.

We worship Him with our voice in our daily prayer time.

God inhabits the praises of His people. When we take the time to spend time in prayer, conversation, with God we are worshipping Him.

We worship Him with our talents and abilities.

Imagine how it makes you feel when you see someone using a gift you have given them. Not the sweatshirt you made in school where one arm is longer than the other and your Mom wears it to make you feel good, but the gift you gave someone and they truly love it and could not imagine life without it. God has given us the gifts and talents we have so we can turn around and use them for Him and His kingdom. He takes extreme delight when we use these things He has given us for His purposes.

We worship Him with music.

There are those that believe that some churches do more entertaining than worshipping. I do not believe that worshipping in song is singing and playing one particular style of music or from one particular source. There are churches that actually split over whether to use hymnals or not. Isn't that silly? Remember worship is the state of your heart, not what is being displayed or voiced. You can sing a song in church beautifully and not be worshipping. You can be the most accomplished player of a piece of music and not be worshipping. You can also sound terrible to the human ear and be driving the person next to you crazy and be sending the sweetest sound to God.

We should be worshipping in all that we do. It's just like prayer. We should be in a state of prayer at all times and we should be in a state of worship at all times. By using the talents and gifts God has blessed us with, we are worshipping. By singing praises to Him, we are worshipping. By giving of our material wealth, we are worshipping Him. By loving our neighbor as ourself, we are worshipping Him.

Regardless of what we do, when we do it with God in the forefront and as the chief reason, we are not only doing His work, but we are also worshipping Him.

Today the most predominant thought of worship is music in the church. So let's take a closer look at that. Let's look at Joshua 6:1-5.

1 Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. 2 And the LORD said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. 3 You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. 4 And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. 5 It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.”

Did you notice who is out in front? The priests with the trumpets! They were in front. Can you imagine if the 2^nd U.S. Marines as they were getting ready to take over Baghdad, decided to have a Navy band lead them into the city? That sounds absolutely nuts, right? This is what God had the Israelites do here. He had unarmed priests with their trumpets out in front of the people to face the king and fighting men of Jericho. They knew, though, that God had a plan and was completely in control.

We are in a spiritual battle each and every day. The forces of the evil one are against us every moment of every day. But we know we have a God who is there in front of us. We carry these spiritual battles with us too. We bring them into church with us sometimes. This is why we have worship in music and song at the beginning of each service. This brings our hearts into a state of worship. This prepares us to enter the throne room of God.

Are your actions worshipping God today? Are you thanking Him for the talents and abilities that He has blessed you with and using them for the Kingdom? Are you keeping God the first and foremost reason for everything you do?

We worship Him with our talents and abilities, with our voices, with our giving, and with music. Everything about us can and should be worshipping God. Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice because this is our spiritual act of worship.