Rick Warren - How Worshiping with Others Changes You—Part One

Hello everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the

Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. We're so excited that

you've joined us today. As we continue in this powerful

series how the Church Meets your deepest needs. Together, we're

uncovering the joy and strength that comes from being a

part of God's family. Now, let's get over to Rick

for part one of a message called how Worshiping with

others changes you.

God has five purposes for your life, and he designed

his church to fulfill those five purposes in your life.

To hope you fulfill those purposes. And today we're going

to look at worship and how worship with particularly worshiping

with other people changes and transforms you. You know, I

was thinking today that one of the many realities of

life that atheists have to come up with an explanation

for is why do human beings naturally desire to worship?

I mean, we're hardwired for worship. If you don't worship God,

you're gonna worship something. But the amazing thing is, all

around the world, in every single culture, people worship God

in different ways, in different styles, and not even in

the same belief systems. But we're hardwired for worship. Now

that certainly isn't something a factor of evolution because it's

not necessary for survival. So why is it that people

automatically have a desire to know God, to know something

greater than themselves. You know, in the world, they are

about six hundred million Buddhists in the world, six hundred million.

They're about eight hundred million Hindus in the world. They

are about one point four billion Muslims in the world.

There are about fifteen million Jews in the world. Course,

so many were killed in the Holocaust and that shrank

the the propagation of the Jewish faith. But there are

two point two billion Christians in the world who say

I believe Jesus is the Son of God. It's the

largest organization on planet Earth, far bigger than China or India,

or China and India put together. The bottom line is

we're wired for worship. So today I want us to

look at why we want a worship. We're going to

look at three or four basic questions about worship what

it does in our lives. So let's just begin first

with a definition. What is worship? Well, I wrote one

there on your outline you might look at it. It says,

you might write this down. Worship is expressing our love

and gratitude to God. Worship is expressing our love and

our gratitude to God for who he is, what he's done,

what he said, and what he's promised to do. Now

that's a mouthful. Let me read it again. Worship is

expressing our love and gratitude to God, God for who

he is. We adore him, that saturation for what he's done.

That's gratitude or great thanksgiving, for what he said in

his word and what he's promised to do. And so

anytime you express your love to God, you're worshiping. A

lot of people think worship is music, worship tool, worship

tool is music. But worship is much much more than

just music. We're going to look at that in today's

message now. In Mark chapter twelve, verse twenty nine and thirty,

Jesus says this, the most important command of all is

this one. You must love the Lord your God with

all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind,

with all your strength. One day Jesus has asked what's

the most important command in the Bible. He says here

it is love. God with all your heart and mind

and soul and strength. Love God emotionally, love God, physically

love God, practically, love God with every area of your

life mentally. Now I want to ask the question why

do we express our love to God? Well, there are

four big reasons. I could give you twenty five, but

let's just give you four this weekend. Four reasons why

we express our love to God in worship. Number one,

because we were made to be loved by God. We

were made to be loved by God. And because we

were made to be loved by God, we inevitably love

him back. First, John four nineteen says we love because

God first loved us. If you don't feel like worshiping,

it just means this, you don't realize how much God

loves you. If you understood how much God loves you,

you couldn't help but love him back. Our worship is

a response. Our love to God is because He loves us.

The only reason there's any love in the universe is

because God is a god of love. God is love,

and so he made us as a of love. Ephesians

one four and five says this in the New Living Translation.

Long ago, even before he made the world. God loved

us and chose us in Christ to be holy and

without fault in his eyes. See that verse. Before God

created the universe, he had already chosen us in mind.

He wanted you, so he created the universe so you

could exist, and he chose us to be in Christ,

to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His

unchanging plan, it has never changed, has always been to

adopt us into his own family by bringing us to

himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.

Why do we worship God because we love him? And

why do we love God because he loves us. We

were created to have a love relationship of friendship with God.

Number two, We worship because everything comes from God. You

look around the air I breathe, the air you breathe,

your heart beat your body, the water you drink, the

food you eat, everything, the sunshine, everything comes from God.

Not only did God create you, he created everything in

the world to sustain you. First Chronicles, chapter twenty nine,

verses fourteen, David says, as he has collected the largest

offering ever in history. It is actually over I think

in today's terms, about three hundred million dollars in a

single offering, and it was for the building of the

temple in Jerusalem. And David says this in First Chronicles

twenty nine fourteen. These gifts did not really come from

me and my people. He's saying this to God. Everything

comes from you, and we could only give back to you.

We can only give you back what you have given us.

So why do we worship? Why do we express our

love to God? Because He we were made to be loved.

And number two, because everything comes from God. Number three,

we worship because we understand life through worship. We understand

life through worship. Every time you focus on God, you

come into his presence. You drowned out everything else and

you center in and focus on God and worship. It

raises your perspective, it broadens your understanding. All of a

sudden things start making sense. Have you ever been in

the service where you walked into a worship service and

you thought, I have so many problems that I'm going

under and i feel like I'm ready to throw in

the towel and I'm ready to give up. And yet

something was said as the pastor taught from God's word

that all of a sudden, you thought, that makes sense.

I get it now, I know what the problem is.

I know what the solution is. In Psal, I'm seventy three,

Verses sixteen and seventeen. David said, I tried to understand

it all the problems that were in his life, but

he said, it was just too hard for me to see.

I just couldn't see it until notice, until I went

into the temple of God. He says, Then I understood

what was happening all of a sudden. He gets God's perspective,

He gets God's wisdom. You get God's wisdom when you worship.

You get it from the Word, you get it from

his presence. Then you understand what's going to happen. How

many times have you gone, oh wow, now I get it.

You're not going to get that kind of perspective watching television.

You're not going to get that kind of perspective play

in a sport. It only comes when you're in contact

with God. And when I'm in contact with God, I

understand life through worship. If you don't go to worship,

you're going to miss out on the perspective that God

has in store for you. Now you know. I've heard

a lot of people say, well, I can worship God

out in nature. Well, of course you can worship God

out in nature. Who made nature? God? Did people say

I feel close to God in nature? Of course you do.

He made nature, and when he made man, he put

him in a garden, not in a skyscraper. Man did that.

But here's the point. You can worship God in nature,

but you can't fellowship by yourself, and you can't involve

other people in the act of worship. Personal worship is

a good thing, but so is corporate worship or group worship.

And the Bible has a lot to say about that.

And if you only have personal worship you don't have

group worship, you're missing out on the larger perspective that

comes when you come to God's house of worship. David says,

when I went to the temple, then I understood what

was going wrong in my life, and you might not

get that anywhere else. Now, there's a fourth reason why

we worship together, and it's because God strengthens us through worship.

God strengthens us. He not only helps us un stand

things clear. We get a bigger perspective, we get a

clearer conviction on life, but we also get the energy

and the power to do it where through worship. There's

so many passages I could share with you about how

worship is designed to strengthen you. That when you focus

on God and when you love and express your gratitude

to God, he strengthens your heart, He strengthens your soul,

he strengthens your body. Ps. I'm eighteen twenty eight to

thirty two. I love this the contemporary English version. He

says this, you Lord, keep my lamp burning. What does

that mean? You keep my lamp burning. You know, if

a lamp is built on oil, pretty soon it's going

to run out of oil, just like a cark and

run out of gas. Have you ever run out of

emotional gas in the middle of the week. You got

to get refilled, You got to get recharged. How do

you do that by going to worship? And he says, Lord,

when I come and I worship you, you keep my

lamp burning. You keep me bright, you keep me sharp,

you keep me on fire, you keep me lit up.

He said, you turn darkness to light. You're gonna miss

that if you're not in corporate worship. He says, you

help me defeat the enemies of my life. Did you

know that when you come to worship, God gives you

strength to defeat the things that would defeat you in life,

all of those little things that irritate you, that pick

at you, that gnaw and nipp ature heels. He says,

you defeat the enemies of my life. Your way, Lord

is perfect, and your word is correct. So he shows

the right way, and he tells us the right thing

to do. He says, you are a shield for those

who run to you for help. He says, you give

me protection. And then he says this, you give me

strength and you guide me right. Bam, that's what happens

in worship. I get spiritual strength, and I get spiritual instruction.

I get the right way to go, and then I

get the energy to do it. I get strength and

guidance on hand. Now, what kind of worship does God love?

What kind of worship makes God smile? Because the Bible

says real clearly, there's a right way to worship, and

there's a wrong way to worship God. You certainly don't

want to worship God in the wrong way. How do

I worship God in the right way? Well, in two words,

write this down. Here's the kind of worship God loves

whole hearted worship. God loves whole hearted worship. It's the

opposite of half hearted or insincere worship. He loves passionate worship.

He loves it. When you tell God that you love him,

you tell him passionately. When you're grateful for what He's

done in your life, you tell him and thank him passionately.

When you praise him, you praise him passionately with your

whole heart. Did you know when you do worship with

your whole heart that God blesses you in ways that

he you wouldn't normally be blessed. Second Chronicles, chapter thirty one.

Look at this verse. Check Chronicles thirty one, verse twenty one.

Love this God's word paraphrase. Hezekiah dedicated his life to

serving God. That's what the Bible says. Everything he did

in worship in God's temples, this is corporate worship. Everything

he did in worship in God's temple he did wholeheartedly.

And now notice this phrase. Oh, by the way, As

a result, it says he was very successful and he prospered.

Hezekiah had one of those successful and prosperous reigns as

a leader of Israel and Why did God prosper him?

Why did God give Hezekiah such amazing success? Because he

worshiped God wholeheartedly. You know, God hates the exact opposite

of wholehearted worship. He hates insincere worship. He hates heartless worship,

fake worship. Worship with your mouth, but not with your

heart and your mind and your soul. You gotta love

God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

Let me give you an example the kind of worship.

God says, you might as well just forget it and

don't even check. In Isaiah twenty nine, verse thirteen, God

says this, these people say they are mine. Now let

me stop there. God is saying, these people claim to

be my children, they claim to be in my family,

they claim to be my followers, they're believers. He says,

these people say they are mine, but they honor me

only with their lips. Their hearts are far away from me. See,

that's heartless worship. He said. They're not worshiping Me with

their heart, They're worship being with their lips. It's just

lip service. And he says, their worship of Me amounts

to nothing more than you human traditions. That they have

memorized and they say by rote. Oh my, have you

ever been in a service like that where everything was

memorized and said by rote and nobody's actually feeling it

or saying it. They're saying it because they memorized your tradition.

And they go to worship week after week, and they

say the same prayers over and over and over, and

they say the same rituals and the same liturgy over

and over and over. And he says, they've memorized it,

and they say it by road. He goes, they're not

even thinking about it. Their mouth is in gear, but

their mind and their heart are not engaged. God says,

don't even bother. I don't want that kind of worship.

I don't want memorized worship. Memorized worship by rote, that's

just from the mouth, but not from the heart. What

kind of worship does God want? Jesus tells us in

John chapter four, verse twenty three. He says, true worshipers

circle that true worshippers. You want to be a real worshipper.

You want to be on authentic worshiper. You want to

be the kind of worshipper that Hezekiah was that God

could bless with success. Jesus says, true worshipers will worship

the Father in spirit and in truth. That's the kind

of worshipers the Father seeks. Now, what does it mean

to worship God in spirit and in truth? Well, first,

he's not talking about the Holy Spirit. He's talking about

that's a small ass, that's your spirit. He says, you

need this when you worship God. It needs to be authentic,

and it needs to be accurate, authentic in spirit and

in truth. Accurate. It needs to be doctrinal, and it

needs to be devotional. It needs to be real, and

it needs to be passionate in truth. It's got to

be authentic based on God's word and in spirit. It's

got to be from the heart. It's got to be

heart felt worship. Now, I want to say something to

you right now that may shock you. But I know

that because we now have podcasts and we now have

services online, there are many, many thousands of people watching

this service online right now. Well that's better than nothing. Okay,

it's better than nothing. But I want you to write

this down, and then I want to explain what the

antidote is it to it write this down This is

very important. Watching worship is not worship. Watching worship watching

other people worship is not worship. See God says, I

want you to come to the house of worship. I

want you to come to my temple. I want you

to gather together. I want you to do the fifty

eight to one anothers of the Bible together. Watching worship

from your iPhone or your iPad, or from television or

from the internet, that's better than nothing, But it's not worship.

Why Well, in the first place, you probably multitasking a

lot of times. You'll turn on a podcast and you're

washing dishes, or you're working in the garage, or you're studying,

or you're you know, picking up clothes or vacuuming. You

might be ironing or whatever, and you're multitasking. Worship demands

your total focus, and so it's real easy to check

in and out a click. I'll watch worship for fifteen minutes,

click out. That wasn't worship. You watched the worship service,

but you didn't worship because you didn't enter in with

other people in the prayers and in the giving and

in the silence and in the confession and in the

committing and in all the other elements of worship. So

when you're sick, obviously, tune into a worship service. When

you're on the road and you can't be in your

local church, do that. But you need a regular place

of worship. And if you're in a place where there

is no church. Some of you are in foreign countries

where there's no church in your village, and you're watching this,

start a group, Start a house church, start a small group.

The Bible says where two or more are gathered in

my name, near in mine, in the midst of them.

All over the world that people gather in small groups.

I know a group in Singapore has sixty seventy people

that meet in a house and they don't just watch

the saddleback service. They worship together. You can start a

house church. You can start it in a building and

a home, in an apartment somewhere, and actually where two

or three are gathered in my name. Jesus said, I'm

in the midst of them. So stop watching worship and

thinking you're worshiping, you know, actually getting up, getting dressed,

you know, getting clean, washing your hair, brushing your teeth,

put it on some clothes, and going to a place

of worship that is an actual act of worship too.

The Bible says, I was glad when they said to me,

let's go into the house of the Lord. How long

has it been since you've been in a house of

the Lord? He said, well, you know, I go once

a month, or once every five or six weeks. God

wants you to worship Him on the first day of

every week.

What a special message from Pastor Rick. And now let's

hear how lives are changing through Daily Hope. Here's Rick

with a letter from one of our listeners.

Today, I want to share a testimony from Ella, who

listens to Daily Hope in Canada, and she wrote, Pastor Rick,

like so many, I found every area of my life

flipped upside down when the pandemic hit in twenty twenty.

I graduated from the university in April that year, and

I was lost and desperate for guidance. Yet as stubborn

as I was, I searched for answers everywhere else except

in God's Word. But out of desperation, I read the

purpose driven Life and I started listening to Daily Hope.

Daily Hope was one of the resources that became monumental

in my journey to giving my life to Christ a

year after I started listening, And so I want to

thank you, and I want to thank everyone at Daily

Hope for all the work that you do. It must

seem so abstract when people you reach are all over

the world, but I know I'm not alone, and saying

that Daily Hope has helped me find comfort and God

when I needed it most. Wow, Ella, thank you so much.

Thank you for writing, Thank you for telling me that

you've accepted Christ. You know, I know so many people

who are just like you. They're lost, they're looking for answers,

and they keep looking everywhere but in the right place,

God's word for the truth. But praise God, you found

the word of God. You believed his word, and you

believe that Jesus is the truth. So it's a blessing.

It's a blessing to know that God is using this

broadcast to help bring you and other people to Him

on a daily basis. Now, you mentioned that it must

be unusual to reach people around the world, even though

I'm not able to meet him face to face, and

I'd like to say this, I wish I could meet

everybody face to face. I wish I could take every

one of you out to a corner restaurant, sit down

and have a cup of coffee, and just let me

hear your life story. I would nothing would make me

feel happier than doing that, But that's why I'm blessed

to receive letters. Please write me, Please tell me your story.

I want to know how God is changing your life,

how God is using his word through Daily Hope to

make a difference in you. So let me know what

God's doing in your life. Let me know how He's

using Daily Hope to help you in your Christian walk,

and that way we can pray intelligently for you.

Hey, if you'd like to let Rick know how this

broadcast has blessed you, he would love it. Please feel

free to send him an email at Rick at pastorick

dot com. That's Rick at pastorick dot com. Be sure

to join us next time as we look into God's

word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by

Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.