Together - WORSHIP

Wondering, um, we have a whole kind of methodology and kind of reason behind that.

Um good morning.

I'm uh Pastor Jonathan.

If we haven't had the chance to meet, I'm so excited uh to be with you guys this morning.

We are in a five-week sermon series called Together.

We're looking at Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47.

Acts 2:42–47

Okay, and we're looking at what we're calling the DNA of gospel community.

What was it that was so distinctive about the very first church in Acts chapter 2?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And we're spending five different weeks walking through five different kinds of lenses to look at the same passage.

Last week we looked at it through the lens of the gospel.

This week we're looking at that through the lens of worship.

Okay, this sermon today is gonna be all about worship.

Now, before I get into that, I do want to say this is a very big weekend for us.

We actually have our college students, a number of them are at Black Mountain weekend.

I'm gonna throw up their picture real fast.

Um, the reason I throw up that picture, uh, one, it's like somebody like, oh man, I remember college, right?

Um I I want you guys to have that picture in your mind because we want to be praying for them this weekend that God will help knit them together as a community, and also that people, it's college students in particular who are far from Jesus, would trust Him as their Savior and Lord.

Okay, so um we spent some time praying for that earlier today, but I want to encourage you, church family, to be praying for them.

And um, I uh what I'm gonna do before we get started, I'm gonna read this passage in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47.

Acts 2:42–47

Okay, and then I'm going to like take us on a little bit of a journey of questions to get into our topic today to help you see and understand what worship is all about.

And then I promise that I'm going to come back to Acts chapter 2, 42 through 47, about the middle part of the sermon, and we're going to see what it looks like that God brings together a community to worship Him.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Okay, does that make sense?

Everybody with me?

Alright, so it's a little bit different, a little bit of different service flow, a little bit different sermon, but that's what we're doing, okay?

I'm gonna read Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47.

Acts 2:42–47

I say it lots of different times in case you're trying to make your way there, you can remember where it is and we'll get there, okay?

Alright, Acts chapter 2, 42.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And they, it's the early church, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers.

And all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who are being saved.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray.

Father, as we um jump into this time of hearing what your word says, I pray that you would speak to us, uh, that you would say to us whatever you want to say, that you would give us ears ready to listen, hearts ready to obey.

There's any distractions in our minds.

Father, I pray that even just right now we would give them away to you, that we would trust you with them.

Um bringing to mind right now the words, Jesus, that you told Martha.

Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things, but only one thing is needful.

Father, today there's a lot on our minds, but only one thing is needful.

Hear from you.

So, enable us to do that.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Alright, this week, um preparation for preaching this sermon on worship.

I've been reading a book called You Are What You Love.

Okay?

It's by a guy named Jamie Smith.

He's a professor.

And he tells this story in the book.

Um, it's best is based on this movie.

It's about these men who are on a journey to this room.

And when they get to this room, if they enter it, they will get their deepest desires.

Everything that they most want, they get when they go into the room.

Okay?

Kind of an existential thriller type movie.

And so there's a character who's like a guide, and he's taking these other two guys on this journey to the room, and what's really interesting is, you know, you you you hear about that?

Like, man, there's a room I can get to, and I can walk into it, and I get everything that I want, everything that I desire.

Man, sign me up.

Like, how do I get there, right?

That's kind of the attitude that the people have if they begin this journey.

But something really funny happens.

You know, the guide makes it clear that when you go into the room, you don't get what you say you want.

You get what you actually want.

So, as these men go on this journey and they get closer and closer, they start to get more hesitation about whether they even want to go through the door when they get there.

What about you?

Imagine the same opportunity was presented to the ballot screen.

Imagine that you could enter a room and get your deepest desires.

Again, not what you think you should want, what you actually want.

Would you do it?

Now, there's two groups of people in the room.

Those of us who when we think about that, we realize, do a little bit of heart introspection, we're like, oh, I don't know.

I'm gonna hesitate.

And the others of us, the other part are the people who should hesitate, but we don't, right?

Um, I did that little thought experiment when I was reading that book, and um, you know, I I realized something, I think hopefully you did too, it's that um I don't always want what I really should want.

Does that make sense?

Like the the the the the heart that's in me, the the center of my will and emotions and desire, right?

Um it wants a lot of things, but it doesn't always want what I should want.

There's something off about my the wonder in my heart.

Does that make sense?

I I would guess everybody, if we're being honest, we were saying the same thing.

There's there's something off about the wonder in your heart as well.

Okay.

Now, Jamie Smith in his book, he he talks about this idea and he kind of uses these terms, what you desire and what you love together, right?

If if if what our hearts want is off, that's a problem for us, and here's why.

Because what you end up wanting ends up shaping every part of your life.

What you desire ends up shaping every part of your life.

What you love ends up shaping every part of your life, doesn't it?

Everybody with me on that?

Because, like, whatever you love, you make decisions about and over time, your loves, begin to look like your life.

In other words, you become what you love.

You are what you love.

And as we turn our attention to thinking about this whole idea of worship, I would just add another layer.

He doesn't necessarily go there in the book, but I would add another layer, which is, you know, you don't, you aren't, you're not, you aren't just what you love, you are what you worship.

Does that make sense?

Wait, what is worship?

You know, that's kind of a churchy word.

Um the etymology of the word worship actually comes from this idea of worship.

It's seeing ultimate worth in something.

Make sense?

And so if you worship something, what you're saying is that thing has the ultimate worth in this time in this moment.

You know, we can worship things like a we can go to a college football event, right?

And we can worship.

Because nothing is more important than the outcome that happens on the field, and I see a lot of disappointed faces in front of me this morning, okay?

Sorry, NC State.

Okay.

Um, you know, it doesn't take a college event for us to worship, does it?

Like sometimes it's uh this this week I was at my kids' sporting event.

By the way, um, if you are a parent and you want greater sanctification in your life, enroll your children into new sports.

It will help you, okay?

Um, it is amazing how much like you see like how much worth and weight you put on your kids, and they're just kids.

And you see yourself doing it, I see other people in the stands do it.

It's incredible.

We we have this incredible part of our nature, which is in our heart, which wants things, which is off, something's messed up about it, and yet it is pulling us in a direction in our life.

It's like in it's like if you had a beach ball and you were trying to push it and hold it under the water, it's always going to come up to the surface.

In the same way, what what is what is in your heart, your desires, your wants, your worship always find a way to express themselves in your life.

And here's one other layer to this.

Your wants are taking you to a destination.

It's like you're standing on a moving sidewalk at the airport.

You might not be doing anything, but your desires are pulling you to a destination.

And back to the thought experiment, it might not be pulling us to the place that we actually want it to be.

Everybody with me?

So when it comes to this idea of worship, we've just got to acknowledge we have a problem.

The Bible tells us that God designed us for himself.

St.

Augustine would say it this way to God.

He said, You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you.

God made us as worshipers to have a desire, to have a love for him that pulls us into worship with him.

And yet, because of sin, we often want, we often desire, we often worship the wrong thing.

The psalmist would say in Psalm 115, verse 8, he would say this about um, this is again, if you're new to church, I'm gonna say, you know, I'm so glad that you're here.

Psalms 115:8

Um sometimes in church we use words that the Bible uses, and not words we use a lot right now, but I want to introduce you to this word called an idol.

An idol, particularly back in the Old Testament, was a created thing that people treated as a God, an ultimate thing.

And they would worship these idols, these created things.

Well, the psalmist in Psalm 115, verse 8, says that whenever you treat a created thing like it is the creator, like it's God Himself, that you become like the thing that you worship.

Psalms 115:8

He says it this way: those who make them idols become like them.

So do all who trust in them.

So you begin to see what I'm trying to help you see is that we're all under a predicament when it comes to worship.

Our predicament is we all have strong desires, our desires pull us along, they are helping us become somebody.

Our desires are not what they should be, and they're actually conforming us into being somebody that we don't want to become.

And so, the question is, like, what do we do about it?

Do we choose- do we just decide, okay, well, I'm just gonna choose not to worship?

Well, you can't actually do that.

You you can't choose not to worship any more than you could choose not to.

You are made to worship.

Um, I read a excerpt from um a famous commencement speech uh speech by David Foster Wallace.

Some of you guys have heard this, um, but he it's called uh This Is Water is the name of the commencement speech.

Not a Christian, okay?

But he had this fascinating observation about worship.

I'm gonna read from his uh speech.

There's no such thing as not worshiping.

Again, he's not a Christian.

Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship.

And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type thing, let's say it's Jesus Christ or Allah or Yahweh or the Wiccan Mother Goddess or the Four Noble Truths, for some inviolable set of ethical principles.

It's the only reason that we should choose that is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough.

It's the truth.

Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly.

And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.

And the insidious thing about all these forms of worship is not that they're just sinful or evil, it's that they're unconscious.

They are our default settings.

They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

It's insightful, isn't it?

We can't not worship.

It's bad grammar, it's good theology.

So let me tell you um a point that happened this week where I had um where I realized this.

Um, so my wife.

Okay.

Um I um have some health goals.

My wife's in the healthcare field, and she's helping me reach my health goals.

Um of those health goals involve what I can't eat and what I can't eat, okay?

And uh this week I had this, this is really what the conversation sounded like.

Or this week, yeah.

I was wanted to eat something, it wasn't good for me.

I knew it, she knew it, but I wanted to eat it anyway.

And I just like, in frustration, I said, you know what?

I'm gonna eat what I wanna eat.

I'm gonna do me.

I said those words, right?

And without missing a beat, she looked back at me and said, How's that working out for you?

I was like, man, first of all, I was like, I don't know if you ever had somebody, you know, say something that's so true and it still just hurts a little bit, but you know it's true, like, oh, I needed to hear that, but it hurts.

Um that was kind of how I felt.

And I was like, man, I'm glad I had a good self-esteem, you know.

Um but it also just revealed just something that was a truth that I've been neglecting.

It's like, you know, the the anthem, the mantra of our day and age is you do you.

Right?

You know where I'm gonna go with this?

How's that working out for you?

But we have a problem that this text addresses.

And our problem is that this deep desire-need thing in us that is made to desire and love and worship is broken, and until it is corrected, until it is rightly ordered, we will always live this ordered life.

Now here's the good news.

The good news is God knows this.

And God in his word actually promised to do something for us that we could never do ourselves.

You know, we're never gonna think our ways, our way into having better loves.

We cannot think our way out of a problem that we have worshipped our way into.

We actually need a new heart.

So I'm gonna take us really quick before we go to Acts chapter 2, I'm gonna take us to the word of God that came through the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 36.

Acts 2 · chapter mention Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

God has seen his people follow after other loves over and over and over again.

If you guys read the Old Testament, you read the prophets.

It's basically God saying to his people, you're following after other loves.

You have disordered worship, you're choosing idolatry.

You need to come back to me.

And what happens with God's people over and over and over again?

They continue to rebel, they continue to walk away from me.

But God wasn't content just to leave that so.

And so Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26, this is God speaking, he says, And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.

Ezekiel 36:26

And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Okay.

So God promised to give his people a new heart.

And listen, this is the big setup, and that's exactly what is happening in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

God is giving to his people a brand new heart.

Now, if you go back a little bit before verse 42 in Acts chapter 2, you'll see that when Peter is preaching the gospel, the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, when he's preaching the gospel, the the people that are listening, the text tells us they were cut to the heart.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Isn't that so interesting?

It's almost like God Himself holding the surgeon's knife is doing surgery on them to give them a new heart and fulfillment of what he promised you to do to his people in Ezekiel chapter 36.

Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

Why?

Because again, what the what the people of Israel most needed was not new instruction to obey.

They already had the law of God.

They couldn't follow the law of God.

What they needed was a new heart that gave them the desire to obey.

You with me?

What they needed was the new ability to actually worship God the way that God created them to worship, and they were only going to do that when he gave them a new heart.

Alright, so if that's all the background, all that is just a giant setup to help you read Acts 2, 42 through 47 through the lens of worship.

Okay?

So now we're gonna go back and we're gonna read this through the lens of worship so you understand what's happening.

Alright, ready?

First part, verse 42.

And they, who's the they?

The they is the 3,000 people who heard the word of God and believed it.

They're not just generic people, they are people who have believed the gospel.

Alright, that's important fact number one.

They're also the people who have received the Holy Spirit.

Do we understand why that's so important?

Because none of the people of God can worship God rightly without God giving them his spirit.

These people are filled with the Spirit of God and it reorders their worship.

Now look at verse 42.

I'm gonna help you see verse 42 in a way that you probably didn't see it before.

You ready?

I want you to pay attention to something.

My mom was a grammar teacher.

She taught me to like look for different things.

Um, who knows what the definite article is?

Alright?

Somebody know what the definite article is?

Adam, what's the definite article?

It is.

The.

And the means what?

It means something that is specific, right?

Okay, now look, look at the definite article of verse 42.

Alright, this matters, I promise.

Okay, I know some of you are like grammar lessons in church.

Come on.

Alright, let's go.

Verse 42, you ready?

And they devoted themselves to tell me when you see the definite article.

Where is it?

The, the, the apostle's teaching, right?

And the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Like we see that four different times, right?

So in other words, Luke, the writer here in the in in Acts, is telling us that the people are participating, the people in the church are participating in worship and they're participating, they're participating in worship through doing specific things that are these these uh worship practices of the church, maybe the easiest way to say that.

They're doing specific things.

They're not just rant, it's not just random apostles' teaching and random prayer and random fellowship.

It's the apostles' teaching.

In other words, what is bringing this church together?

Remember, our series is called Together.

What is bringing this church together is shared worship.

The way that worship is lived out is they are devoted to the apostles' teaching, the word of God.

So in other words, that this early church is worshiping God by devoting themselves to the word of God.

They're devoting themselves, what do you see as the second one there?

They devote themselves to the fellowship.

In other words, that being a part of the church, if you're going to follow Jesus and be devoted, alright, it means that you are devoted to the other people in the church.

They're devoted to the fellowship.

Does that make sense?

That they are finding a corporate identity that they have with other people in the church.

They devote themselves to the apostles' teaching.

They devote themselves to the fellowship.

They devote themselves to, did you see that phrase?

The breaking of bread.

Alright, just pause, profess.

What's that mean?

Right?

Breaking of bread is kind of like a metaphor that we use, right?

Just like sharing a meal with somebody else.

We broke bread together.

Is that what that means?

We're just talking about a meal.

Is that where we get the idea of breaking of bread?

Church, talk to me.

Where do we get where's the etymology of breaking of bread?

Where do we hear that?

Say it again.

Communion.

That's it.

The Lord's Supper.

So in other words, what they're practicing is not just some generic meal sharing.

What they're practicing is communion together.

They're practicing what Jesus did for them, his body that was broken from them, his blood that was poured out, and they're doing that in a way that is about worship.

And then did you see the last one?

And they devoted themselves to the prayers.

These were ways that the church together was devoting themselves to praying to God.

It wasn't just generic prayer praying or prayers.

They were devoting themselves to the corporate worship of God's people.

And what happened?

Because they're doing these corporate practices, okay, all came upon every soul.

What is all?

All is this mix of wonder and fear and a sense of kind of feeling small.

Isn't that what all is?

Have you ever been in awe of like a spectacular sunset?

Have you ever been in awe of a great piece of music?

Have you ever traveled to a national park and just seen this amazing vista?

Just been like been in utter awe.

Have you ever been in awe?

What is it?

It's a mix of fear and sometimes wonder, and sometimes this sense of like feeling small.

It's it's in other words, it's what we experience when we worship.

And all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done to the apostles.

And all who believed, here's our phrase, were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as in the need.

And day by day, attending the temple together.

Here's another place where we see the early church worshiping in the passage.

They were attending the temple together.

What did the temple represent, first century Jews, first century Jews?

What did the temple represent?

The presence of God, right?

The temple was where God dwelt.

It's where you would go to do what?

Worship Him.

So it's so interesting, you know.

These um Jews, if we go back in Acts chapter 2, we see that they came from 17 different areas in the Roman Empire.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And they would come three times a year to three Jewish festivals to worship in Jerusalem.

But what's so interesting here is that they came from this festival called Pentecost and they didn't leave.

They had performed their religious duty of traveling to Jerusalem to worship Pentecost, but they didn't leave.

In other words, something happened to them when they believed the gospel that they did not want to leave either the presence of God or the worship of God.

Do you see what's happened?

What's happened?

If we were to go back a few verses, we would see that they were not just cut to the heart, but they all repented and were baptized and were filled with the Spirit.

In other words, what is true of this church is the words of the prophet Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 36, God had done in this people.

Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

This was scripture, this is prophecy that is fulfilled in this people, and it's restoring right worship.

They now can worship God rightly, which they're exhibiting all throughout these different practices, because God had given them a new heart.

And their new heart is giving them new loves, and that new love was to love God rightly.

That's why they would attend the temple together, and they're again, you see, they're breaking bread of their homes.

They receive their food with glad and generous hearts.

And then one more time, what were they doing?

Praising God.

They were worshiping God for all that he had done, for hearing the news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, for um having him uh that they're they're saved not just from their sins, but into the family of the church, and then that life in the church is giving them this awe and joy, and that joy is resulting to the worship of God, praising God, and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved.

Alright.

But some of you are here and you're thinking, um, Pastor Jonathan, last week we said that this series was going to be about community.

Remember we said that?

Right?

We talked extensively about we're in a community deficit in America.

People are moving more and more towards isolated relationships.

Alright, what in the world does shared worship in the church have to do with community?

Here's the answer.

Shared worship will always create shared community.

Shared worship will always create shared community.

Have you ever met somebody and they love what you love?

You might not have anything else in common with them, but don't you all of a sudden just feel kind of a, oh, you you too?

I mean, back to the the football game analogy, it's like when, you know, you go to the Clemson stadium, I mean the Clemson Temple is what I mean, I'm sorry, and you worship there, you're around all these other people who are who are applying worth to something, right?

The outcome of a football game.

And doesn't that have this way of binding the group of people together?

It also makes you enemies of other people, but it binds you as a group of people together.

It's because any type of shared devotion, shared worship, it ends up creating shared community.

Listen, you if it if if you want to experience unity in your family, you know one of the sweetest things immunity in your family can be is when you all shared worship God together.

You want to have a marriage where you feel like you have shared unity in the mirror?

You worship God together.

Shared worship creates shared community.

Um, I want to point something out.

These six verses, I want you to see look who does what in these six verses.

Okay.

Alright, first, we see that the church, the members of the church are doing some things, right?

They, they devoted, right?

Look with me, um, Acts 2.42.

They devoted.

They were the ones who were together, they sold, they distributed, they attended, they broke bread, they were praising God.

That's all them.

That's all the members of the church.

But I also want you to see something.

It's not just that the members of the church are doing things that are creating this unity, it's also that God Himself is doing something.

Did you see that phrase, all came upon them?

In other words, this sense of all was not from them.

They didn't, they didn't manufacture this all.

This all actually came to them.

All came upon them.

These signs were being done through the apostles.

See what that language is?

It's not that the apostles are out there just like, hey, let's perform some signs.

But rather, God himself was working through the apostles to perform these signs.

Signs were being done through the apostles.

And then at the end, do you see that's the Lord who is adding to their number?

In other words, get this.

This is amazing, okay?

Uh, church is not just about what the members of the church are doing.

Church is about what God is doing through the church.

You see it?

Church is not just about what the members of the church are doing, devoting themselves, being together, giving generously, praising God.

Church is also what God is doing in the people of God.

And so there's this interplay of this relationship that's bringing them together and it's producing all.

Um, here's the thing.

Um, God is always, you've heard me say this before, but God is always doing about a million things in the world, and we're only ever aware of about two or three, maybe max in our life.

But John Piper said some version of that.

One of my questions to you is, are you paying attention to what God is already doing all around?

I mean, because maybe you might say, well, great, well, there's the apostles are doing wonders and signs, and if our church we had all these wonders and signs being done, maybe I would experience all too.

But I think if if that's your thought, we're missing it, aren't we?

Because God is always working around our church all the time.

What what if God was doing things in your life and around your life and in the people around you already, and you're missing your opportunity to be in all of what he's doing.

You know, um I uh was wrestling through this this sermon this week, um, trying to figure out how how deep to go here.

Wrestling to the sermon this week, and I I feel like the Lord really kind of revealed something to me, kind of called something out in me.

Um let me give you a little bit of background about my personality.

Um I I grew up, um, my dad had a blue-collar work ethic and just like taught me to be responsible for myself and really be responsible for the the world I live in.

In other words, you don't expect other people to do stuff for you.

You do the you do the thing yourself.

You're responsible.

Um and that I think in in in many ways was really good for me.

But this is where it starts to get unhealthy in me.

I start to take responsibility for things around me that aren't my responsibility.

Like I'm just talking about me right here, Jonathan.

Like sometimes I I take responsibility for the emotions of people around me, and I'm not responsible for their emotions.

Sometimes I take responsibility for like things that need to be done in my family that I can't actually control.

Um, sometimes as a pastor of a church, I take responsibility for things that only God can do in and around our church.

But I feel like it's up to me.

And the cumulative effect of that for me is I feel like stress and stress and stress.

I feel like I'm wearing carrying this weight.

And let me tell you what a lot of my prayers to God sound like.

A lot of my prayers sound like God, once you take away this stress.

And this week in my time alone with the Lord, working through this content, it was almost like the Lord said to me, Jonathan, you don't have a stress problem.

You have a worship problem.

And this is what I think that he means by that.

It's when you're when your heart is rightly seeing God for who he is, and you and you worship him.

In other words, you're not worried about what's going on around you.

Your eyes, your mind, you're seeing God who is high and lifted up, God Almighty, the God who is all-powerful, who's all-knowing, who's all-wise, who's all good, the God who is can declare the end from the beginning, the prophet Isaiah says.

When you begin to see that God, you know what begins to happen?

It's not that like everything and all your problems just begin to go away.

But you know what does happen?

They all begin to take their proper place.

And in sight of a God who is that big, the stress that I carry begins to seem really small.

Let me kind of lovingly say this.

I don't know.

I'm not saying this absolutely because I don't know every situation in this room clearly.

But what if some of the burdens that you're carrying that feel so heavy aren't as big as you think they are?

What if what if you actually really need to worship your way out of the problem?

Um I want to move to this idea.

I've been kind of lay lay some ideas that I want to bring back here, okay?

I know that when you hear this idea that uh we're supposed to worship God, a lot of times we're like, okay, great.

Um, there's one more one more duty I need to do.

But but why does God even want me to worship him?

Does he need me to worship him?

Like he's you know, like he's you know low on ego, and the more people sing to him, the better he feels.

No, that's not God.

God, God is independent.

He doesn't need us.

So why does God want us to worship him?

If God doesn't need us, why does God want us to worship him?

Isn't it actually more about us to some degree?

Well, I mean, one, it's it's the proper response of a creature to a creator.

We should be worth I mean, if we're talking about God, there's only one proper response.

But isn't it something that is really kind of an invitation?

Have you ever thought about it that way?

That God's call for us to worship Him is an invitation to relationship with Him.

God doesn't need you.

He doesn't want you.

Maybe, you know, you would say, well, Pastor Jonathan, I don't really believe that.

If God is any type of God, then he knows all about me.

And I don't know how you could know everything there is to know about me instantly.

It's here where we we where we remember the truth of the gospel, Romans 5.8.

But God demonstrates his love for us in this.

How do you know God loves you?

Anyone know the answer to that question?

How do you know God loves you?

God demonstrates his love for us in this.

While we were yet sins, Christ died for us.

I want you to see something right here.

You remember earlier?

Um, I said your life moves in the direction of your strongest loves.

We talked about that.

Your life is moving in a direction.

It's moving in the direction of your strongest love.

Remember we said that you ultimately become what you love, you remember that?

Here's the deal.

That doesn't just apply to you, it also applies to Jesus.

Think about this.

Jesus' life moved in the direction of his strongest love.

Jesus, in a very real sense, he became what he loved.

Jesus is the Son of God, and God the Son was eternally pre-existent with the Father before all creation.

Yet he didn't consider equality with God something to hold on to.

And he humbled himself and became like a servant, and he was born as a human being.

Why?

Did he become what you love?

When Jesus became a human being, so he could live the life that you and I are supposed to live.

Pay the penalty for our sin by dying the death that we deserve to give us an opportunity to have a relationship with God the Father.

Why?

Because he loves us.

Because he loves you.

Heard it said this way the Son of God became man so that he could enable men and women to become children of God.

This is the reason that we should worship.

Because in worship, God is beckoning us into a deeper relationship with him because he loves us.

Worship to some degree is a description of what it looks like to come before a holy God as He's a loved child.

That's what happens.

You see God as who he is.

You see yourself.

But sometimes there's you you confess your sin when you fall short.

And you worship, you give glory to God.

Why?

Because that's God's desire for a relationship with us.

And it's only when we begin to do that that our desires get to be reordered.

It's only when we begin to do that that we begin to receive and grow a new heart before the slide.

It's only when we get to do that that we get to become whom God has made us to become.

That's why the whole point of the Christian life, I don't know if you ever thought about it this way, but the whole point of the Christian life is to become godly.

And the only way that you're ever going to become godly is to worship God.

So how do you do that?

Well, again, first, you do what this early church did.

First, you you hear the gospel, the message that Jesus lived, he died, he rose again, and you believe it, you trust in it, you rest in it.

And when you believe the gospel, you are made new.

You receive that new heart.

God sends his Holy Spirit in you to give you a new heart and new desires, to convict of sin and to point to righteousness and to reorder your disordered desires.

So that you begin to want what God wants.

And walking with God through worship, walking with Jesus through worshiping him is one of the ways that we become like him.

As a matter of fact, it's the chief and biggest way that we become like him.

You will not become more like Jesus by knowing more about Jesus.

A bunch of us know stuff.

A bunch of us don't do what we know to do.

The only way that you're ever actually going to be transformed is not if you get more ideas in your head.

But you receive a new heart because of faith in Jesus.

And when you receive that new heart, your whole life begins to change.

And worship doesn't become a duty, it becomes a joy.

And just like it's described here in the early church that they gather together with glad and generous hearts.

Same thing can be said of our church.

And so, here's what we're going to do.

We kind of arrange the service a little bit differently than we typically have.

We're actually going to end most of our time in worship.

We're going to practice what we've been preaching.

And when I say worship, what do you mean?

I mean, everything that we do in our corporate service, we design to engage our hearts in worship.

We do this thing at the beginning of a service, which we call a call to worship.

I know it's kind of a turkey term.

It's a call to worship.

What's a call to worship?

It's not the pastor standing up and say, I'm calling you to worship.

We actually read a passage of scripture where it's God Himself speaking, where He's inviting us, His people, into a worship relationship with Him.

Do you see that?

That the call to worship is an invitation into relationship with the Creator of the universe.

And then when we sing songs together, we're reminding ourselves of the truths of God.

And when we worship God as God, you know what begins to happen?

Sometimes, like the stress, the burdens that we carry, they begin to take their proper place.

Because God becomes big in our minds and our hearts.

He becomes big because he is big, and we begin to see him that way.

And our worries become small.

And then we are being changed into the image of Jesus Christ.

We become Christ-like when we worship.

Here's one more thing that happens when we worship.

Sin, the power of sin in our lives is broken.

When we begin to set our eyes, our attention, our mind, the light, the affections of our heart on who God is, every other lesser desire in our life finds itself falling away to some degree.

It begins to have less of a hold on us.

That's the power of a person who is worshiping.

We are not just worshiping, but we are in the process of becoming.

When we pray in our services, when we we stop and we remember that God is God and whatnot.

That's what prayer is.

That's good news.

It's good news that God is the one who's holding up the universe.

You're not.

You're not even holding up your little corner of the universe that you think you are.

God is the one, Colossians 1, sustains, He sustains all things.

When we pray, we remember that.

And so we bring him our needs.

We bring him our prayers, our desires.

We receive from him the prayer, and then we open God's word and we hear from his word and we begin to practice it, obey it, and we're beginning to be changed.

All this is worshiping.

This is what I want to do here in just a moment.

Actually, I'm gonna go ahead and call for our worship team to come up as they're making their way up.

What I want to do is I want to lead us in a moment of prayer.

That God would do this, that God would create in this church, Harbor City Church, a church of worshipers.

Let's pray.

Father, um, as uh we consider just what it means that you have made us for yourself, that you have made us to worship you.

Um it's my prayer that this church would be known as a place that worships the living and true God, the one true God.

That we would be known for our worship.

Father, we we've we've seen how what we worship, we become like.

Psalm 115.

And at the same time, we confess that we have run after other desires.

God, we treated other things as ultimate in our life that aren't ultimate.

And here in this moment we get to come back and remember that, to confess those things to you, and at the same time to get re-centered, to get reordered, to get reoriented.

And we do that through worship.

So, Father, I pray for every single person in this room as we just stand here in a moment.

Um, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would come and you would fill this place.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you would, um, if anybody here they're carrying a burden that's not theirs, that you would help them through the worship of God set it down.

Father, I pray that through our worship together, you would give us a fresh vision of who you are, that we would experience all in who you are, that you invite us near.

And Father, for anybody who's here who hasn't yet received you as Jesus as their Lord and Savior, I pray that you would awaken faith for them to believe, that you would give them a new heart, you would send your Holy Spirit to make his home with them.

All this we pray is for your glory and our good.

Church to stand and worship together.

So we have to work, happy lesson.

I'll bring you more than a song, for song is not worth you have.

So about you, so about you.

All I have is every single word I'll bring you for a song for something it's not what you have inquiry.

You search much deeper through the way things up.

You're looking into my heart.

I'm coming back to heart.

It's all about you.

I'm sorry, Lord came out.

And it's all about you, Jesus.

I'm coming back.

Sorry about you.

Jesus.

I'm sorry, Lord.

Sorry about me.

Sorry about me.

I'm coming back.