11/10/13 WORSHIP

    Peter Buehler, who helped lead John and Charles Wesley to Jesus, once said, “If I had a thousand tongues, I’d praise Christ with them all.” Charles Wesley expanded this stray comment into lines that became the well-known hymn “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”
“The Golden Age of Hymns,” Christian History, no. 31.
    Charles Wesley wrote this in 1739.  I found a version with 17 verses.  I think he was trying to express something profound in his heart.  Let me share a few of them.  Remember how we defined worship last week: worth-ship.  Ascribing worth, value.
    O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!
    My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honors of Thy name.
    Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
’Tis music in the sinner’s ears,
’Tis life, and health, and peace.
    He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.
    Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come,
And leap, ye lame, for joy.
    All the glory and honor goes to God.  Lift HIM up.  This is worship rising from a heart to God.
    A Psalm of worship to God.
Psalm 95:1-6 NKJV
1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with Psalms. 3 For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods. 4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. 5 The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
    Pick out the words that emphasize God, words of worship.
SOME BACKGROUND OF WORSHIP
    People have worshiped God from the beginning of history. They have not always had a formal worship service.  Adam and Eve had an amazing personal relationship and interaction with God in the Garden.  God came in the cool of the day and visit. Their sons, Cain and Abel, both brought offerings to the Lord.
    Seth’s descendants called “on the name of the Lord”.  Noah built an altar to the Lord for a burnt offering after the flood.  We see the use of animals sacrifices to God.
Genesis 8:20 NKJV
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
    Abraham set up many altars throughout the region that later became Israel’s promised land to present offerings to God and experience close personal companionship with him.
    Worship was expressed in personal and family ways in the beginning.  After the exodus Israel made the tabernacle (a tent) that served as a worship center and represented God’s presence.  Then, public worship became a formal ceremony or activity to honor God.  From then on sacrifices were offered regularly, especially on the Sabbath.
    When the Promised Land was finally theirs, eventually they built the temple in Jerusalem and their formal worship centered there.  When the temple was destroyed in 586 B.C., the Jews began to build synagogues as local places of instruction and worship while they were in exile. These buildings continued to be used for worship even after the second temple was built under Zerubbabel’s leadership. There were synagogues throughout Judea and all over the Roman world during New Testament times.
    Then Jesus came and, after the crucifixion and resurrection, established the church.  In the early days of the church, worship took place in the temple as well as in private homes.  As the Gospel spread, Christians worshiped in the synagogues as long as they were permitted to do so. When that was no longer allowed, they met elsewhere for worship—usually in people’s homes.
    How can we express worship?  The Bible teaches true and heartfelt worship can take many forms and postures.  Some of them are:
Bowing down/kneeling
Standing
Clapping and shouting
Raising hands
Walking and leaping
Lying face down or flat on the ground
    As long as the expressions of worship are suitable for the situation and are sincere responses to an awareness of God’s presence, they are acceptable to God.  All worship should lift up the Lord, not the individual worshiper.  Remember, it’s all about God, not me.
    Genuine worship must take place in spirit and in truth.
John 4:23 NKJV
23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
    Jesus, speaking to the woman at the well.  She started debating about the place where people are supposed to worship God.
    Jesus told her that the place of worship is not the issue.  God’s primary concern is our spiritual attitude.  True worship must come from the heart and reveal deep devotion to God. We must offer ourselves to God in complete openness. Our worship must focus on God’s character and attributes.
***Can you name characteristics and attributes of God?
***How do we connect them to worship?
    Truth is a primary characteristic of God’s nature.  It is at the heart of the gospel message of Jesus.
    Give your best to God in worship.  He is worthy of it.
    Around Thanksgiving one year, Paul Harvey shared a true story of a woman and her frozen Thanksgiving turkey.
    The Butterball Turkey Company set up a phone hotline to answer consumer questions about preparing holiday turkeys. One woman called to inquire about cooking a turkey that had been in the bottom of her freezer for 23 years. That’s right—23 years. The Butterball representative told her the turkey would probably be safe to eat if the freezer had been kept below zero for the entire 23 years. But the representative warned her that even if the turkey was safe to eat, the flavor would probably have deteriorated to such a degree that she would not recommend eating it.
    The caller replied, “That’s what I thought. We’ll give the turkey to our church.”
Paul Harvey daily radio broadcast (11-22-95)
    I want to do something different and use the same questions we used last week at the end.  We need to give a strong emphasis to worship, what it is and how we can worship God in our lives.
Practical application of worship in our daily life.
Define worship.
How can you worship God throughout the week?
How can we make corporate worship more powerful?
Don’t be afraid to use your voice in worship.  Words as well as song.
Be sure of knowing Jesus  as your Savior and Lord.

The foundation of this message is based on study taken from the Fire Bible, Don Stamps, general editor.