The Will to Worship

I want to read to you from the 11th chapter of the Book of Romans.

And then I want to spend a few minutes with you to review a theme, relate a truth, and renew a song.

Let me say it again.

Renew a theme, relate a truth, renew a song.

And as we review the theme, the theme is watershed worship, which this being the third week, we continue and we'll conclude this series.

I want to relate a truth that I frankly feel a little uneasy with, not because I don't believe it, obviously, but because you're always at risk, especially with people who would be relatively new, which perhaps it may be most helpful too, but it could be a little perplexing.

Because it has to do with the truth of the relationship between the spiritual realm and the physical realm.

And the physical realm is so consonant and immediate to our lives right now that oftentimes faith becomes something that is just entirely internalized rather than recognizing that the invisible realm is real.

As a matter of fact, the invisible realm is more real than the physical realm, which is certainly real.

I mean, this is a real world.

And it's an important world, but it's a temporal one.

This one will pass away.

This whole creation, the universe, was spoken into being from out of what we call the invisible realm, which in the invisible realm is, in a sense, far more tangible and durable because it will last forever, and this one may go on for a long time and has been around for a long time, but it is not a forever world.

And so the fact that this one came out of that one by the declaration of Almighty God and bringing all things into being says something about the relative relationship.

And making the connect sometimes is difficult for people, and worship is a point of connect.

As a matter of fact, we made a connect with spiritual reality when we took of the Lord's table a few moments ago.

Because we took two little elements, a piece of bread, and we took a little cup of juice.

And there are few, if anyone, in the room for whom that was a meaningless exercise that only had to do with bread and juice.

For everyone, it was a point of connect, saying, This is a representation of a reality.

Can you say amen?

And the reality is that Jesus Christ's body was broken for me and his blood was shed for me.

And we partake as a celebration, as a commemoration, as a fresh affirmation of what he did for us.

And we all recognize that as worship.

Oftentimes you've been to baptismal services, and people come through the waters of baptism to get more than wet.

They're exercising an act of obedience to the Lordship of Christ, who said, commanded that we be baptized.

They're exercising a response to new life that has come to them, acknowledging that just as they are going in the water, that is at a burial of the past, and arriving, arising unto the newness of the life that they have received in Jesus Christ.

The connect between the spiritual reality and the physical realm of things that we're not as unaccustomed to as we think sometime.

I want to talk about things we do in worship and take us back to where we left off last week before I read to you the passage of the text this morning.

Because as we begin to wrap up a series that begin with the wisdom of worship, the wisdom being that there be a passion in our hearts for the presence of God, just as David, who danced before the Lord with joy, the dignity and regality of a king, laid aside his robes and in a very simple garment danced in the presence of God before people that embittered his wife, who was irritated that the king was doing this in public.

And David said, He said, Listen to me.

He said, Your father, because his wife was the daughter of the preceding king, who was deposed because of the miserable failure that was driven by fear and pride in his life.

And he died a horrible death, a tragic death.

And Saul is referenced by David, who says to his wife, who is embittered at the way that he danced on that occasion in worshiping God.

He said, I will be yet more undignified in my eyes.

Because, and he was basically saying, Because God is greater than me, and I rejoice in his presence.

And he warned her about the folly of the pride that had actually brought about her father's fall.

The wisdom of worship, we spoke about the way of worship.

And the beautiful summons of the Lord to build the tabernacle, because he said, I want to dwell among you.

God didn't need a building.

He does not need a building.

But he said, I want you to determine that I really, really am coming among you.

Make a place where I can come and I will dwell among you.

And he manifests his dwelling presence by the cloud that was over the tabernacle, and it manifests in a, it appeared to be a flame at night by the glow of the glory.

And the, it was all for his saying, as you want my presence, he says, I want to be with you.

And the way of worship is where he said, You build a place and I will meet you there, and I will speak with you.

And the heart of God overflows.

David's heart for worship is a wisdom of worship, and the way of worship is when we come understand God's heart to be with us.

He loves us, and he wants to draw near to us.

And worship is walking in that, living in it.

And we have worship services, but worship is a lifestyle, a life plan, a way of relating to the Lord and understanding his heart for you.

Now, what I want to talk about this last message in the series is the will to worship.

And it really is hinted at pretty directly in the passage we read last week when the Lord said, as you build this place, he said, see that you make it according to the pattern.

In the book of Exodus, that phrase occurs several times, see that you build it according to pattern, which is God's way saying, you don't just worship me anyway.

You know, as uh as American citizens, for example, we're accustomed to four freedoms, among them the freedom of worship.

And there is the statement of our liberties that uh is often spoken that you have the freedom to worship, worship God according to the dictates of your own heart.

And uh we we somehow think that's in the Bible somewhere, and it isn't, because there are terms upon which we you have the freedom to worship whatever God you want in the United States and I suppose anywhere if it's secret.

But in the U.S., uh we worship whoever you want.

But once you determine to worship the living God, then we come on his terms.

We come by the doorway of saving grace, which we celebrated today in a very special way.

We come by the doorway, which is a grace that is shown through Christ, who is the door, the sacrifice through whom we're welcome into the presence of the Father.

And then, as we walk in worship, without your uh turning to it right now, I want you to know, and if you didn't get a bulletin, you may want to get one as you exit, because within it there is a sheet.

And but don't bother to go there right now because I'm not going to go through that with you.

But it has a number of things I want to refer to you in the time that I have yet to minister to you today.

I've got about 15, 16 minutes left in this message.

And as I do, I want to now come to the text because I really have already dealt with the first part of the theme, reviewing the theme.

And the watershed worship has to do with the flow of life that becomes bountiful.

And we make the determined termination whether the flow comes with liberty and abundance, or whether we tighten up the strings through, just as we can resist the Lord, we can resist opening to the freedom and the fullness of worship.

Because worship is more than just simply a meeting you go to, more than a form, more than a set of calisthenics, more than a set of songs.

It's something that composites all those things together with the music and the expressions.

We do lift our hands.

And that brings me to the text, because I can't imagine the text having been written, except that the Apostle Paul was, when he comes to the verse that will conclude my text, was saying, Join me in this fashion.

In fact, it seems he is saying those very words, though they aren't the words that occur.

Let me read to you from the 11th chapter of the book of Romans in verse 33.

Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

For who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who has become his counselor?

Or who has first given to him and it shall be repaid to him?

For of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be glory forever.

Amen.

And I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, or your spiritual worship, literally, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or demonstrate what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Let me paraphrase this to you a bit and understand the context.

The book of Romans is a marvelous theological development that begins with the acknowledgement of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the face of a creation that tends to rebel against him.

And then unfolds the foolishness of religion when it is only religion and not the reality of relationship with God.

And moves on to confronting the fundamental need of every human being, and it's that separation from God that's the result of things we call sin.

But sin is really not so much a set of deeds as it is this issue of the blindness that is lived out in the wake of not having relationship with our life source.

It's the activities of a deadened relationship with the one who birthed us into life at creation.

As we come to the fourth and fifth and sixth chapter, there is the magnificent unfolding of the great truth of justification by faith.

That the Lord not only forgives us our sin, but through Christ regards us as never having sinned in the first place.

It's an incredible proposition when you think about it, but it's God's own heart speaking to us, saying, I do not just regard you as forgiven, but the record has not only been abolished, I put the record of my son before myself in your name.

It's as though the signature of the Son on the document that indicates our salvation is, as it were, that that signature is not only something that sets us Scot free, but something that substitutes his record of sinlessness in our place.

And since he never sinned, God says, I regard each one of these who by faith have come to me through your speaking to his son.

These that have come to me through you, Father says, I declare them to have your righteousness completely.

That's a point somebody should say, thank you, Lord.

Yeah, go ahead.

A little bit more of that, huh?

Amen.

Yes.

And the blessing of that salvation is ours.

Then moving into chapters 7 and 8, contrast the life that trying to live for the Lord stumbles until we find the liberty in the life of the Spirit, chapter 8 of Romans.

The uncondemned life that operates in fullness.

And having finished that, Romans 9, 10, and 11.

And this intentional development is not for scholarly purposes.

It's to bring us to why the Apostle Paul rises with this payon of praise that we just read, beginning in verse 33.

Because he goes into dealing with the challenge of the history of the Jews' rejection of the Messiah and how Father God is even going to work that around until there ultimately comes a recovery that says, all Israel shall come eventually to know me.

And then he, as a Jew especially, but as a Jew believer in Messiah, that the Apostle Paul, who is the consummate theologian in the New Testament, a man of brilliant intelligence and scholarship, a guy that in no wise would tolerate disorder in services, we know that from 1 Corinthians.

A guy who has sanity but the dignity of knowing the Lord and certainly the brilliance of an intelligence, he breaks into this.

He says, Oh, and I want us to hear him and recognize that after having worked through all that, coming to this point of acknowledging all the things of what God has done for us through Christ and the majesty of his awesome power, when he says this, all the riches, the depths of the wonder of God, how unsearchable are his ways.

And they're past finding out.

You're not hearing a man making a recitation.

Oh, the depths of the riches of the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his ways.

You know, this is not some pensive regard when he finally comes to the place of saying, For who has known the mind of the Lord?

Who could ever be his counselor?

For of him and to him are all things.

And then he says, To him be glory forever.

Amen.

And oftentimes we fail and trip over or stop at the doorway of chapter 12, which is a human reference point, because the text continued when he said, For of him and to him and through him are all things, to him be glory forever, amen.

And I beg of you, brethren, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual worship.

And don't be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may uncover, discover, and experience what is the goodness and the beauty and the perfection of God's working of his will in your life.

And it is that that hinges on him saying these words.

He said, I beg of you, become a worshiper of God.

Now, in verse one, without my taking time to parse it and go through the grammar and go through the words that are so significant in that one verse.

This would be true any one of the verses, but notably, it touches on human intelligence, human emotions.

I beg of you, brethren.

He's appealing to the emotions.

The emotions are not anything to be fearful of.

They are no part of our being is intended to dominate.

The spirit of God dwelling in us is intended to dominate the life that Christ gives us.

He mentions which is your spiritual worship, and literally it is a word that bridges both the realm of intelligence and then spiritual integrity and new life.

So it's the spirit, the mind, the emotions, and all of it converges when he says, present your bodies.

So it becomes very tangible.

It becomes very physical.

Bernie liked our church, but the first few times he came, he was unnerved, just as I was the first time I came to a church like this one.

And I was unnerved because people were lifting their hands, and I they weren't being foolish, but I was like, you know, you feel somehow like you're standing there doing a perfectly normal thing standing straight, and you must look funny and feel funny, but you feel like you'd feel funnier if you lifted your hands.

So you don't do that, and it's sort of a tearing, which really, frankly, is enough.

Some people say, I'm never going back there again.

But then they'll come back, and they come back for a reason, for reasons that I remember people saying to me when they would join our church, the church on the way years ago, and the several years, the 31 years that I pastored there, and I served, that people would come, and I would, when we received members each month in a private reception, would say, uh, you know, now you're obviously here, you've gone through the membership class.

You're joining the church of your own volition, you like it, obviously.

How many of you here, I would ask, first time you came, you said, I'm never going back there again.

There would always be at least 10%.

And we asked them why.

It usually had to do with nothing disordered, but they were disarmed by the worship.

And uh I'd say, Well, why did you come back?

And almost uniformly they'd say, Because when we really wanted God, we knew the presence of God was there.

Something in the worship, the very thing that unnerved us, that we knew that there was something that was other than just people.

God was in that place.

So, gateway, as you know, the theme text, this is the gate of heaven.

A pathway to enter into the presence of God and to live in the presence.

Worship is about that, the presence.

Now, having said that, the paper that is inside the bulletin, don't look there.

Take it home with you.

I want you to note it that that is given to you as a study piece if you wish.

My risk today in focusing the will to worship has to do with the will of personally coming to terms, number one, with the revelation of God's word.

The revelation of God's word is very clear about the fact that this body that he's redeemed, as well as having redeemed us eternally in our souls and forgiveness, the record of the past, that he wants us to present our bodies as a sacrifice to him.

You could say in serving him.

And we do that in a very real sense when we give, because what we give is a reflection of the fruit of what we do with our bodies and day-to-day, week-to-week pursuits.

So bring our bodies and present them.

And we do, when, in fact, when you got up and came to church this morning, you presented your body.

And some of us got up and felt that was a living sacrifice, too, when we got up.

That was just a bit of a struggle to get up and get this going around.

And so there is a that you did a spiritual thing when you brought your body in here.

And you brought it by an act of your will.

It was a choice.

And so here you are.

You came as we stood before the Lord.

That is a biblical expression of worship, to stand in the presence of God.

It's in the Bible.

You come and stand in the presence of God.

One of the most beautiful songs I know begins by saying, May I stand, O Lord, in this holy place.

May I worship you and behold your face.

There is something as we sing, oh, sing, singing is fraught through in much of the scripture.

In fact, there's 150 songs written in this book.

And as you sing, it's an act of worship.

It's a physical expression of worship.

Standing, singing, and we lift our hands.

Well, that was the thing as I described to you that Bernie was troubled by.

And I remember the first time I ever went to a place where that was the first time that I had decided I'm going to be here, but I've got to get used to this.

I went home.

I thought first I want to be sure that it's in the Bible.

And it's really, I knew people would quote it.

I knew that lifting your hands was somewhere in the Bible.

What was really disturbing to me is it was so many places.

You know, I would have loved to say, well, it's only there once.

As though that would have made a great difference, because God doesn't say, when he said, let there be light, a voice did not call back and say when.

You know, he doesn't have to say it multiple times.

The summons of the Lord in his word to present ourselves and upraised hands is as I said moments ago, this is not about calisthenics.

But there's a whole list of things which aren't intended to say, look at all this list and all the texts of Scripture that verify it and do.

The paragraph before it's a short one.

And I talk about the verb proscuneo, which is the word for the Greek word for worship, and it literally means, let me demonstrate to you what proscuneo literally means.

It means this.

It is prostrate before God.

Prostrate before Him.

I could have stretched out as well, but at age 75, it's hard to get up.

It's the prostration, it isn't the physical prostration it's about.

It's the choice to humble myself before God.

We certainly don't do that every time we come together because there's not space and it wouldn't be appropriate in that environment.

So all the list of things are not to say, do all these things and do them at once, and in the hour we're together each Sunday, we'll check off the list and be sure we did all the things we should.

The issue is to come to terms with my own will that will always make choices.

And there'll be choices oftentimes that I choose, my own comfort zone.

And it could be so simple a thing as saying, I don't want to get up this morning.

It's Sunday, I know, and I ought to go and be with the assembly.

But I'm not, I just don't want to do this.

I don't feel like it today.

And it's not a matter of saying you'll go to hell anymore than if you don't lift your hands, you're going to go to hell.

That's not the point.

The point is I come to recognize how many times you've said, Well, I'll go to church today.

I know I should get there, and when you go home, you're so glad you did.

And when we enter into worship, you go and we say, Lord, I'm glad I opened up.

And as he would say, I want you to learn more and more the simplicity of openness to him.

Upraising of hands is not really a great issue any longer in much of the church.

And it certainly isn't in this church.

But I can, as I cited, remember cases of people telling how that was a struggle for them.

And I told you that I wanted to review a theme and then to reveal or to unfold a truth, and I've dealt with it in the light of this text, which has been very quickly covered and could be elaborated at great length.

And God is merciful on you, and there's not time to do that.

But I want to renew a song, which is the last thing I said.

And it's a song I first learned about 35 years ago.

And uh I I from the first time I heard it, I thought, that's perfect.

I was pastoring, we were, in fact, beginning to learn to worship as a congregation, in really the beauty and the simplicity of a more transparent, open worship, which is very biblical.

It's not something that is some nuance.

It may was new to us, and we were being enriched by it.

And in that, uh, we learned this song.

And so prepare yourself for the shock I'm going to sing, and you'll be stunned by the splendor of it all.

Support people who start to swoon because it is very, very moving.

Seriously, it is such a simple song.

I want you to listen, if you do know it, because a few of you will, go ahead and sing with me.

And when you hear me, you may want to sing loud because you'll say it will help the rest of the people if we can cover that troubled voice.

This is a song.

Make me an instrument, an instrument of worship, for I lift up my hands to thy name.

Make me an instrument, an instrument of worship, for I lift up my hands to thy name.

That's the whole song.

Tell somebody, oh please, no, no, no, no, no.

That was not about a performance.

The performance is gonna happen now.

The whole choir is gonna sing.

And if you didn't realize you were enlisted when you came through the door, stand with me, will you?

Let's sing it together.

Make me an instrument, an instrument.

Now do it, will you with me?

For I lift up my hands to thy name.

Make me an instrument, an instrument of worship, for I lift up my hands to thy name.

Will you sing these words?

I love you Jesus.

Yes, I love you, Jesus, and I lift up my hands to thy name.

I love you, Jesus.

Yes, I love you, Jesus, and I lift up my hands to thy name.

Would you just lower your hands to about chest high and get your arms comfortable just like this?

I want to ask you to close your eyes but lift your head.

Lift your head upward.

For the Lord is my glory and the lifter up of my head.

What does an upraised head look like?

The banishment of condemnation, the reinstatement of worth and dignity.

And he who has redeemed us done to that, we come to you, O Lord.

And pray that as we lift our heads, as we stand in your presence, as we open our hands before you to receive your purpose in our lives, make us those who, opening ever and always to your word and your spirit.

For those that worship you, worship in spirit and in truth, the truth of the word.

Even this week.

As those may investigate some of the things that sometimes are thought not awed, but never linked to the spiritual reality of our worship.

But at least be within our awareness and our availability as we worship you.

We love you, Lord, and this morning we want to say all we have is yours, and we will to be yours.

And so, Lord, as we momentarily lift this applause, it is not an applause after the order of man, though it exercises the same fashion of expression, but the order of those that understand who it is, that they clap their hands and shout, as your word says, because of the triumph that is ours through Jesus Christ.

And him we magnify as we conclude this time in the word and exalt him with an applause.

Will you praise your name, Lord?

And speak his praise.

Speak his praise.

Hallelujah.

Blessed be your name, Lord.

Blessed be your name, Lord.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.