The Call to Worship

When we hear the word worship many people think of a church worship service. Worshiping God is more than what is going around you. Its what taking place within you.

How can we worship publically without worship personally first? 

To worship God is to recognize His worth or worthiness; to look God-ward, and to acknowledge in all appropriate ways the value of what we see.

The Bible calls this activity "glorifying God" or "giving glory to God," and views it as the ultimate end, and from one point of view, the whole duty of man (Ps. 29:2; 96:6; 1 Cor. 10:31).

When we get out of abstractions of thought, that we realize our need of a heavenly Father, that we turn to Christ as the revealer of that Divine and blessed truth.

1.    The idealist, who contemplates and worships God as Thought, and sees Him as essential Truth, Love, Justice, and Beauty, is satisfied with that idea as long as he can live apart in his study and separate himself from the strifes of the world.

2.    And the natural philosopher, one who loves and honours God as the living energy of the universe, and worships Him as such honestly and rightly, though he conceive Him as impersonal, when one of the great sorrows of life besets him, and the sorrow makes him feel the absolute personalty he himself has, and which he had almost lost in ceaseless contemplation of an absolute Force—does he then only see the Impersonal bending above him?

How shall we worship God?

John 4:23. In spirit and in truth. Or commune with God

True Worship

He spoke of a new worship essentially different from the old. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Its not a place. God doesn’t dwell in building made of Stone

It is not a question of place. “Neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem is the place.” It is no question of cathedral, or church, or chapel, or hall.

Wherever a heart yearns for God and pours itself forth, there is God’s House, there is God’s blessing. Every sick-room can be a House of God; every hospital ward a House of God; every lonely heart away in the deepest solitude in seeking Him can find His House.

It is not a question of time.

If this true idea of worship be once grasped, that it is not an outward form, not outward ceremony, not at set times, but ever, always, the going out of hearts towards and after Him, it will mean that our worship will find expression in our home life, in our factory life, in our shop life, in our dock life, in our so-called secular life, and everywhere, always, all things, sacred and secular, will be blended in one lifelong act of worship, our heart going out to God in spirit and in truth.

Its Foundation

The first essential of true worship is a true appreciation of God’s character.

In our approaches to God, the frame of mind is everything.

Like worships like. God is mystery, worship is faith; God is wisdom, worship is thought; God is love, worship is affection; God is truth, worship is sincerity; God is holiness, worship is purity; God is omnipresence, worship is everywhere; God is eternity, worship is always.

Its Nature

To worship is man’s highest glory. He was created for fellowship with God.

All the exercises of the religious life—meditation and prayer, love and faith, surrender and obedience, all culminate in worship.

Worship in Spirit

The true worship is not the prostration of the body in kneeling, nor even the prostration of the soul in distant adoration, but the yielding of our living powers willingly and gladly to the Divine influence within us.  

Worship in Truth

Our worship must be “in truth”; truth as regards God Himself, and truth as regards our own state.

Recognizing what God is in His holiness, His glory, and His love, realizing what we are as sinful creatures, and as the Father’s redeemed children, in worship we gather up our whole being and present ourselves to our God to offer Him the adoration and the glory which are His due.

The truest and fullest and nearest approach to God is worship. Every sentiment and every service of the religious life is included in it: to worship is man’s highest destiny, because in it God is all.

1. We need to have a true conception of God, as far as we know Him, as He is revealed to us through Christ.

2. We must also have truth in ourselves.

Holy character is a kind of worship. All true life is worship: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Let worship be worship,—a beggar knocking at the door; a sinner prostrate for mercy; a servant looking to his Master’s eye; a child speaking to his Father; a pardoned man resting; a saved man thanking; a saint rejoicing.

Worship is life changing and empowering.

1. Life-changing worship begins in a heart that is in awe of the majesty of God.

To worship is to humble yourself before God in awe of who He is and what He's done!

Humble yourself and mentally and emotionally and spiritually.

2. Life-changing worship begins in private and continues in public.

3. Life-changing worship involves our service to the Lord.

Worship that changes lives!

Worship that cleanses hearts!

Worship that results in a passion for God .. a passion for holiness, a passion for God's Word, a passion for souls!

Worship that impacts our homes, impacts our church, impacts our culture!