Worshiper: Saved to Sing

This morning we're going to be talking about bearing the marks as a worshiper.

Bearing the marks as a worshiper.

And the topic of worship is incredibly important because we see in Scripture that God is passionate about the way in which He is to be worshipped.

It's not something that's kind of up in the air or up to our own devices to or prescription how to worship.

God is passionate and He has order and He has called us and commanded us to worship Him in the way that He desires.

And so it's important when we talk about a word like worship that we kind of work to define what it is because when we hear the word worship, we all, our minds probably go varying different ways, right?

We think of maybe singing like we just did.

We think of maybe music.

Maybe we think of our favorite worship playlist that we have on Spotify.

Maybe we think of the congregation that we grew up in, or the type of gatherings that we prefer, or maybe the culture of our worship setting that we participated in throughout maybe childhood till now.

And so, you know, worship is kind of one of those words that we use a lot.

And so we're gonna kind of unpack really what it means.

Pastor and author Louis Giglio, uh, he has a pretty simple quote or definition on worship that I'd like to submit this morning to be begin developing a framework.

He says that worship is our response to whatever we value most in our lives.

Whatever we value most in our lives.

You see, in all reality, worship is not uniquely Christian.

See, every person is a worshiper.

We all worship something, whether that be money or sex or job or fame or sports or status or our children.

We all are worshipers.

See, whatever we value most in our life, we devote the most amount of our time to, right?

We commit our schedules to this end.

Or maybe wherever we spend our finances, we can probably track our finances where we spend uh the bulk of our money, and at the end of that, we'll see really the throne or the God that we worship, whether that be our homes, whether that be our children's education, their sports future, right?

That's very uh prominent in our culture.

Um, at least in my family, we are at it seems like we're spending tons of money and time on sports, right?

And so if we're not careful, those things can become our gods.

See, whatever we value most will fuel our actions.

It's going to drive our day-to-day.

So the reason this topic of worship is so important is because at the heart of our worship, the motivation is either a celebration of the glory of God and his design, or a rejection of the glory that is due to him alone.

See, we're either worshiping God for who he is, or rejecting him as our greatest treasure.

There's no in-between, and we're going to explore that this morning.

See, for us living in a broken world that's bent on self-glory, that's bent on instant gratification, that's bent and has the ability to have just pleasures forevermore at the click of a button, right?

We can do anything with our phones and our laptops nowadays that satisfies us temporarily.

And it's so easy to get caught up in these fleeting pursuits and passions.

John Calvin says it this way man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

Our hearts, as worshiping beings, it's kind of like this manufacturing assembly line that is constantly churning out different idols that we worship.

And so, whatever the flavor of the month is for you that that month, that's at least how I'm wired.

I can get uh infatuated with something, and I'm just like all in on that, and then next month my attention goes here, and then next month, and my heart, if I'm not careful, it begins to pursue and worship creation rather than our creator.

See, mankind was created to glorify God, not only man, but all of creation.

The psalmist in Psalm 19:1 says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims its handiwork.

Psalms 19:1

We see psalms over and over where we see the waves clapping their hands and rejoicing, where we see rocks crying out, everything was created for God's glory.

From nature to mankind itself.

Ephesians chapter 1, it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ Jesus with every spiritual blessing.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.

See, we have been created for a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify our Creator.

So this morning that might be a discovery.

Do you want to know what your purpose is?

Do you want to know why you are here?

You are created to bring God glory.

And we do this not only through song, we do this not only through singing.

Often we're thinking worship is just singing.

No, it's all of life.

The posture of our heart is worship.

The Apostle Paul in the letter to Hebrews 12:1 says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Hebrews 12:1

Our whole beings worshiping our Creator.

So before we go any further, as I hope you're in Psalm 95, we're just gonna go one chapter past that to Psalm 96, and we're gonna look at verse 8, because I want to submit a biblical definition of worship this morning.

Psalm 96, 8 reads, Ascribe or give to the Lord the glory due his name.

So what is worship?

Worship is giving to the Lord the glory that is due his name.

From our lips to our lies, everything in between should be an act of worship in all of life.

See, true and proper worship.

Worship that is pleasing to our Father is declaring with our whole beings that He is our greatest treasure, that He is worthy of all of our praise and adoration, our affections.

His glory is to be shared with none other.

So we're gonna open up in Psalm 95.

Psalm 95 is broken into two parts.

Really, the dividing line is verse 7.

So we're gonna look at our call to worship in verses 1 through 7a, and we're gonna look at our caution for worship in verses 7b through the end of the chapter.

And so we turn to God's word and we see our call to worship.

Verse 1 reads this way: Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord.

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us sing.

Come, let us sing.

And then he goes on further.

Let us make a joyful noise.

I think that is maybe in there for those that can't sing.

I don't know.

We if you can't sing, that's okay.

You can at least make a joyful noise, right?

You guys are all great singers.

I can hear you up here.

We hear you.

But no, we are commanded uniquely as Christians to sing.

So while worship is not uniquely Christian, one thing that is unique to the Christian religion is that we are a singing people.

See, to my knowledge, there's no other religion that is commanded to sing, whose people are commanded to sing.

That's something that is unique.

And so while singing itself is not only worship, it's an expression of the posture of our hearts.

It's an expression of the obedience to God's commandment to be a singing people.

See, 85 times in the Old Testament, God's people are commanded and experience singing to God.

And not only do they sing, they're commanded to.

See, the scriptures, they're saturated with this command for God's people to sing.

It's not an optional function or activity of the church.

Rather, it's a mandate as part of God's good design.

We see this in the New Testament as well.

Colossians 3.16.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And if we're honest, we need to pause for a moment that this command might seem strange at first glance.

God commands us to sing.

And if it was simply just a command to sing, this empty, you know, we've we've been, you know, we've gone to church this morning and we began to sing.

And there's a very real reality that this morning that some of us came into this place thinking we were worshiping by filling in or singing what was on the screen.

When all the while our hearts truly weren't worshiping.

See, God is not superficial like we are.

He sees past the exterior and he wants our hearts.

He wants worship that is an outflow, an overpour from really what we believe that He is our greatest treasure.

So it is possible for this morning for you to sing a song and not actively be worshiping.

For you to raise your hands and not be worshiping because your heart is not engaged in it.

We see Jesus caution them in Matthew when he says, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

In vain do they worship me.

And so this morning, our act of obedience, this commandment to sing, is really an act of honoring God for who he is, what he says, and a celebration of the glory that he holds in our hearts.

I want to give us four things that we see in Scripture with the power of singing, of why God commands us to sing.

And I'd submit this morning that singing reminds us of God's goodness.

Singing reminds us of God's goodness.

Psalm 96, verse 1 through 4 reads this way: Oh, sing to the Lord a new song.

Psalms 96:1–4

Sing to the Lord all the earth.

Sing to the Lord and bless his name.

Tell of his salvation from day to day.

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.

For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

Sing of him day to day.

Tell of his glory from day to day.

Singing reminds us of the goodness of God, of the majesty that is his and his alone.

Secondly, singing also allows the words of Christ to dig deep roots in our souls.

As a responsive arts team, we like to say it as singing is portable theology.

It's theology on the go.

Oftentimes when we leave a Sunday gathering here, we're not reciting the words that were preached or proclaimed from the scripture.

Oftentimes we find ourselves walking out of here singing the songs that we sung, right?

That's probably your experience, unless you got a really good memory and I don't.

That's probably your experience, and that's why we care so much about the theology, the content of the words that are being sung, because these songs are things that get deeply embedded to our hearts, and they allow us to remind us in the highs and lows of life, the truths of Scripture, the nature of who God is.

We see this command from God to Moses in Deuteronomy.

So God's people were about to enter the promised land, and Moses was not allowed to go in, but God gives Moses this commandment to Joshua as he's passing off the torch to Joshua.

He says, Now therefore, write this song and teach it to the people of Israel.

Put it in their mouths that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.

For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and when they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them and despise me and break my covenant.

And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness.

See, God in his wisdom chose to use song to remind his people of who he is, of what he has delivered them from, of the promises and the goodness that is in him and him alone, so that when they do get to their promised land, when they do experience that land that is flowing with milk and honey, when they do turn to other gods and other idols, and they end up empty because he alone satisfies.

Thirdly, singing sustains us through trials.

I know firsthand that songs have been ministry to my soul during the darkest moments of my life.

Stories of songs we see countless saints that are even being point of being martyred and being burned and tortured.

We have stories of them lifting up songs as a strengthening for the moment.

We see in Acts chapter 16 as Paul and Silas are imprisoned and they are enshackled and they are chained and they began to sing.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

We read in Acts 16, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

And the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake.

So that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everybody's bonds were unfastened.

See, singing is a weapon of warfare to sustain us through life's trials.

Fourthly, singing is a dress rehearsal for eternity.

Singing is a dress rehearsal for eternity.

This morning, we're not simply coming in to sing songs as some earthly experience.

No, this morning, as we have gathered corporately as the bride of Christ, we are partaking in a foretaste of what eternity is going to look like for us.

When all the saints from every tribe, nation, and tongue gather around the throne of the Lamb and sing, Worthy, worthy, worthy are you.

So this morning, we have a foretaste of that.

And so you better like it.

That's what it's going to look like, right?

So maybe our hearts need to be changed and worked in such a way that He is our greatest treasure, not just this camaraderie and friendship and fellowship.

No, Jesus is our greatest treasure.

Worthy is he, the Lamb that was slain.

Revelations chapter 5 says, Then I looked and I heard from the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

See, we gather every week to that end, to make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

That's verse one.

We should continue on.

Verse two.

Verse two.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving.

Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise.

So here we have that commandment again to not only sing, but to come into his presence with joy.

With joy.

With a posture of thankfulness, of gratitude for who he is, for what he has done.

See, our vision at Sacred Mission is that all might know the joy of his salvation.

And one way that we hope that that's accomplished is that everybody who comes in through these doors, as we are renewed into the image of Christ, as our hearts are transformed to greater affection and love and adoration for him, that we would have great joy.

That our community, our body would be a people marked with joy that is unshakable.

That we would be marked with a posture of thankfulness.

Verse 3, for the Lord is a great God.

This is our reason.

This is our why.

Why do we worship?

Because the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.

See, we get this reason, for the Lord is great.

Psalm 96 says that there is no gods like him, for all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols.

See, our king, our God is like no other.

And he demands, he is worthy of all of our praise.

See, the nations have their gods and their power are limited to their rule and reign, but the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, the God we worship this morning, is exalted above all gods.

Psalm 145 says, For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, his greatness is unsearchable.

We cannot begin to search out the depths of his glory, of his greatness, of his majesty.

And this is exactly what the psalmist does throughout the rest of this chapter.

Verse 4 through 6, he begins to paint a portrait of the greatness of our God.

And verse 4, in his hands are the depths of the earth.

The heights of the mountains are his also.

See, he is the God of both the heights and lows, the mountains and the valleys, the hills and the caverns, the peaks, the deepest parts of the ocean that have yet to be explored or discovered.

He is the God who fashioned them.

He holds them together.

We read in chapter 5 that the sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Yes, we have the story of creation, but I can't wonder what the audience would have thought of and they're being rescued from captivity in Egypt.

That we have this great Red Sea.

If anybody's ever been to the ocean, you go into the waters and the waves just continually keep coming.

There is no stopping of the waves, and sometimes you get out too deep and it begins to pull you.

You feel the strength and the weight of the undercurrent.

If you're a fisherman like me and your Facebook feed is full with uh rip current warnings, that's what my Facebook seems to have.

I guess they're afraid of me dying in the water.

But I get to experience as I like to try to go deep sea fishing.

I like to experience the ocean, and I see the power, the weight, and I can't imagine what the original audience would have gone to in their minds when they saw the Red Sea that has always been there part, completely separate.

And here's this path of safety for God's people.

For He formed the sea and he fashioned the dry land, and he rescued them from.

Their captor.

That is the God that we serve.

And it's not enough that the trees and the mountains and the rocks and the hills and the oceans bring glory to God.

God is after the affection of his bride.

For it's the church that brings him the most glory.

The church that is made in the image and redeemed through the resurrecting power of the empty tomb, that Christ is given the most glory.

See, God has chosen a bride for himself.

And he doesn't just want a lukewarm bride who kind of loves him.

No, he wants a bride that has been washed clean underneath the sprinkling, cleansing flood of Christ crucified, who has been redeemed and who understands and begins to search out with greater fervency the way to honor and love him.

Summary of verse 1 through 7 is that our God is greatly to be praised.

Our God is greatly to be praised.

So we received our invitation, our call to worship, and we see part two is our caution for worship.

So we've already stated that God cares deeply about the way in which He's worshiped.

And as much attention is given to the command to worship, Scripture is filled equally with cautions and rebukes about the heart or the posture or the essence in which we worship.

Matthew 15, the people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

In vain do they worship me.

So we pick up in verse 7B, it says, Today, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

Today, if you do not, if you hear his voice.

See, the psalmist goes on to describe a specific caution for worship.

And see, the people had experienced all of these mighty works of rescue and redemption from their captivity.

And we read that they had begun to have apathetic hearts or disobedience.

They began to grumble in their hearts and question why God even saved them.

That life was actually better in captivity than them wandering in the wilderness.

So he goes on specifically to call this to mind.

And he says this damning statement in verse 10 through 11 For 40 years I loathed that generation, and said, They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.

And therefore I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

And so the question this morning is our posture of heart.

What is it?

What is the climate of our worship?

Is it marked with apathy?

Is it marked with maybe half-heartedness?

Are we worshiping God with our whole beings, our whole lives, our time, our talent, our treasure?

Or are we simply going through the motions, worshiping God in any way that we believe is necessary or fit?

No, our God is rightly to be worshipped, and He is rightly to be feared.

Our God is rightly to be feared.

This statement, therefore I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Man, what a statement of condemnation for their sin, their apathy, their disobedience.

Our God holds the keys to life and death.

He is fervent for his worship.

He tells us that he will not share his glory with another.

Our God is greatly to be raised, praised, he is rightly to be worshipped.

And our main idea this morning is that God's glory and our joy are magnified by the heart of our worship.

God's glory and our joy are magnified.

They're made much of by the heart of our worship, by the posture, by the essence, by the motivation of our worship.

Our story is that often our worship is half-hearted.

Our worship is often half-hearted.

We worship with our leftovers, our seconds, our extra time, our extra finances.

What's left over, it doesn't hurt me.

It's not as sacrificial, it's not from a heart that is wholeheartedly seeking to make much of the glory of God.

And what I'm not saying is that if you give more to the church, that your worship would be pleasing and acceptable.

No, that's not the heart posture unless that's what God's calling you to do.

That's not the heart posture we're after.

We see Cain and Abel having two sacrifices that were brought before, and one was pleasing and one was not.

What I'm not saying is that you mark off your entire calendar and you simply only pray, or you simply only go to church.

No.

What is the posture of your heart in these moments of mundane, of monotony?

Where are there areas in your life that we can seek to be a church that lives for his glory?

And so whether you're driving the kids to school instead of just putting on the music or just getting them there, how can I redeem this moment in time to give God the glory to worship him in my heart?

Whether that's a workplace, we have meetings that are that are coming up, we can't just cancel them off the counter.

But what are ways that we can worship God from our hearts?

It might be our finances, it might be the fact that we have selfishly held on to the gifts and the maybe we've believed the lie that we did something in the first place to get this money or this status or this promotion, and we hold it in selfishly instead of giving from a generous heart.

And so this morning the call is to worship God with our whole being.

We see this caution from the vision of the Apostle John, the book of Revelation, to the church in Sardis that had half-hearted worship.

Revelation 3 says, I know your works.

You are neither cold nor hot.

Would that you were either cold or hot.

So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

That's God rejecting the church for their lukewarm, half-hearted worship.

Oh, that that would not be our story, church.

That we would worship him with red-hot affection, with all of our beings, from the lips that we proclaim to the lives that we live.

So the question I had this morning is: how would you self-diagnose the temperature of your heart, the climate of your heart towards God?

Our God is rightly to be praised.

And our worship should be fit or fashioned in such a way that is fit for a king, pleasing, made acceptable through the merit and work of Jesus.

Others of us, our worship is often misguided.

Misguided or out of alignment with God's design and order.

We've talked about God cares about the way and manner in which he is to be worshiped, and he doesn't leave us to our own devices or imagination about the way in which he is to be worshiped.

And so whether that is our Sunday gatherings, our family rhythms, the way that we live our lives, God has revealed himself to us through his word about the way in which he is to be worshipped and prescribed us to be worshiped.

And oftentimes, if we aren't careful, if we don't recalibrate our ways and the posture of our heart to his ways, we unfortunately are having vain pursuits, empty practices and rituals that don't move us in greater affection of Jesus, that don't increase our satisfaction in him, but leave us empty and tired and pouring ourselves out to an end that's not bringing him glory or our joy increasing.

John 4, Jesus said we read this in the beginning of our Gospel of John series, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

Seeking such people.

God is actually looking for such people that worship him in accordance with the way that he has called us.

For God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

We don't have time to unpack that.

You can go listen to our sermon series through chapter four in the Gospel of John, but worshiping God through Christ in spirit and truth.

God has revealed Himself fully through taking on flesh in the person and work of Jesus.

And it is by Jesus alone that our worship is pleasing and acceptable.

And so this morning, where have we gone off kilter with the way that we have worshiped?

Where has our worship become misguided, out of alignment with God's word?

Our gospel conviction is that the glory of the Father and joy of the Son is realized in the victory of the empty tomb.

See, ultimately, it was God's own glory that drove Jesus to the cross to redeem what was broken in his image bearers, to ransom and rescue, to wash his bride clean so that our worship could be pleasing and acceptable.

We sing the hymn before the throne.

I love it, but it's before the throne of God of love.

I have a strong and perfect plea.

A great high priest whose name is love, whoever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands, my name is written on his hearts.

This song is a song about Jesus being our great high priest who intercedes before us, who goes before us and makes the worship that would have been vain, that would have been empty, that would have been detestable or deplorable to God, pleasing and acceptable because when Christ sees us, he doesn't see our work, but he sees his righteousness.

He is our great high priest and he is our great sacrifice that has sprinkled us clean to the washing powers of Calvary, so that we might be without spot, blemish, or wrinkle, as Ephesians chapter 5 would say.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

But that we would be presented to him in holiness and splendor and beauty, that God sees us and he sees something to be desired.

God is seeking out such worshipers in this way.

This is where God's glory and our joy are amazingly intertwined.

See, God gives of his very best, his son, so that we might be satisfied in his very best, his son, for his increasing glory and our true and lasting joy and satisfaction.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

Christian, you are created to glorify your Maker and redeemed to live a life of worship pleasing and acceptable to Him.

So this morning I ask, where is God inviting you today, in this hour, to worship Him the rightly?