So far we have looked at
W: worship God [on His terms]
O: overflow with God’s praise
R: recognise God’s position
S: Submit to God as His possession
H – Hear God’s Voice.
Psalm 95: 7b: Today, if only you would hear his voice…
The worship of God, and the vibrancy of it, is that it becomes a two way street. It’s not that He worships us, but that He begins to speak to us.
Remember we have talked about worship being God-focused. About the Hebrew word Yadah, extending the hands and ‘throwing’ worship to Him. We have talked about no coming to worship to get something out of it for ourselves, but to give God something.
When we come with the right attitude – the sacrifice of praise – we begin to discover that God speaks.
How often have we been worshipping and discover that mid-song a thought comes to us that seems to answer our needs? How sometimes we will hear God speak a word of knowledge or prophecy to us?
Did you know we are worshipping when we are listening to a sermon? When we hear God speak through a preacher? Have you ever had those times when you hear a message and your mind goes on a journey? You return to the message a few minutes later but you find God has spoken to you? Now we’re not talking about daydreaming or thinking of your favourite TV programme. We’re talking about that moment when God takes something that is said and it speaks to you!
The secret to living a successful Christian life – the secret to living a life of love – the secret to worshipping God – lies in the fundamentals – in the very basics. And one of the most basic tenets of Christianity is that we have to listen to God. And we have to live life God’s way and we can only do that if we listen to His teaching as a worshipful experience.
Paul warned his young protégé, Timothy, about this when he wrote: The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2 Timothy 4:3).
Too many people today only want to listen to what they want to hear. Too many people today, even in many parts of the church of Jesus Christ, want to pick and choose which parts they like. But the teachings of the Bible are not mix-and-match.
Ed Cole: the scripture you love is the one you obey!
I don’t believe in boring preaching. Wynn Lewis said, “Boring preachers should be shot because Mark 16 says they cannot be poisoned.”
How many times do we struggle to read the Bible? Do we think it’s boring? Do we fall asleep reading it? I recently read the whole Bible through in 90 days (well it took me 94). I’m doing it again.
There are three problems with reading the word of God:
• The enemy doesn’t want you to because the last thing he wants is you knowing and declaring it.
• Your flesh [the selfish you] doesn’t want you to, because it requires discipline and change.
• We often read it in the wrong way – like a newspaper rather than a love letter.
Barbie and I still have our old letters we wrote to each other. Loooong letters. I never got bored of devouring them. Why? Because they were written with me in mind! Sometimes I read them through quickly, other times I’d dwell on a phrase.
The Bible is God’s love letter to you, written with you in mind; go devour it!
I – Implement God’s Plan
The whole purpose in listening to God is so that we can implement His plan. We hear God’s word so that we can heed word. Psalm 95:8-9: Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
The name “Meribah” means “quarelling.” And the name “Massah” literally means “testing.” These names both refer to the same actual, historical place where the Israelites had contended with or tested God through their grumbling and complaining.
This particular incident is recorded for us Exodus 17:1-7. The Israelites were journeying through the desert on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land and rather than trusting in God to provide for them they instead began to grumble and complain. They had camped in a place called Rephidim and it turned out that there was no water source there.
In Exodus 17:3&7 the Bible says: The people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?’”…..“And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarrelled and because they tested the LORD saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’
And the real problem was that it was not just this one incident, but this one incident symbolised a whole generation of faithless Israelites.
Some may say that we are being too hard on these poor Israelites. After all, if you were stuck in the desert with no water you would be upset too. Well, if we look back to our text in Psalm 95, we will see the real problem.
In verse nine God says, “they tried me, though they had seen what I did.” They had seen all of the mighty miracles that God had done – the plagues that he had sent upon the Egyptians – the Red Sea parting so that they could walk through on dry land. Even though they had seen the mighty power of God first hand their first reaction when faced with a problem was to believe that God had now abandoned them and therefore to grumble and complain.
How often do we respond to problems like that? Is our first response to a problem – “God can take care of this”? Or is it to whine and complain like the Israelites?
Grumbling and complaining is the exact opposite of worship. We can’t worship when you are complaining. You can’t glorify God when we are grumbling. They are completely opposite attitudes.
The further problem is that the faithlessness of the Israelites directly resulted in their refusal to implement God’s plan. When they got to the borders of the Promised Land they found it occupied by giants living in well-fortified cities and they didn’t believe that God could deliver the land into their hands and so they refused to even try. Instead they just sat around grumbling and complaining about God.
If we jump ahead in our text to verse ten we read the result of their refusal to implement God’s plan.
10a: For forty years I was angry with that generation.
For forty years God was angry with them. He is referring to the forty years that He made them wander in the wilderness until every last one of the generation of those who had refused to implement His plan was dead. And then when they were gone He delivered the land into the hands of that generation’s children.
True worship is a matter of obedience.
“Our pews are occupied by people who want to be moved, but who don’t want to move.” (Leonard Sweet).
In other words, our pews are occupied by people who want to be moved emotionally, but who don’t want to move obediently. Encountering God in worship leads us to action outside of the church walls.
Someone once said, “Worship always leads to action.”
True worship must always lead to the implementation of God’s plan and purpose for our lives.
Remember that I have said that ‘worship as a lifestyle’ can be misleading if there is no encounter with God through worship. The truth is that we are called to worship and then move out in active discipleship.
In the film, Bridge on the River Kwai, POW’s were being forced to build a bridge. In the movie Alec Guinness decides to rally the troops to actually build the bridge. He goes into the field hospital and calls out all the walking wounded. And out they go, limping, bleeding, hurting to finish the task.
The church is similar. Sunday worship is our field hospital. We worship God, get nourished by the Word, but we have to go out on a mission afterwards, except we go our better than when we came in!
So let’s come to Sunday worship not simply wanting to be moved emotionally, but with a commitment to move forward obediently.
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