Sermon Tone Analysis

If like me you ever find yourselves on your smart phone with nothing constructive to do, here’s something that might you pass the time.

Google “weirdest New Year’s resolutions”.

…Not right now, though.

I did, Wednesday night.

Let’s just say it was enlightening.

Some of these, as you might expect, are just plain weird:

I resolve to stop kids from flossing in public.

Watch every episode of Power Rangers.

Stop kids from eating dirt.

Get lost without the help of Siri.

Then there were the New Years’ resolutions that I literally cannot say to you and I wouldn’t dare put them on the screen.

There were some that were funny:

Become a vegan and inevitably give up in six months.

Stop procrastinating, but not today.

Rule the world.

Notice that the first two about becoming a vegan and procrastinating actually have failure built into the resolution itself.

Then there were some that were good, like check your facts before you post something on social media.

In all seriousness, though, New Years Day is a day on which, for whatever reason, we find ourselves motivated to make some changes in our lives, often harder changes than we would otherwise be motivated to make.

And we call them resolutions because we want to make a new start, we want to begin a new chapter, with good habits that will last through the year.

And Christians, of all people, ought to make New Years’ resolutions.

Because we believe that God is a God of grace who forgives us of all of our the failures and sins of 2022 and gives us strength to make a new beginning for 2023.

If you haven’t already made your New Years resolution — and if you have made one — may I suggest one?

Actually, may I suggest four words, four habits,?

The words are on the screens behind me.

Worship — grow — love — serve.

You may have noticed these four words before.

They’re on our website, they’re on our brochures, they’re on the screens.

These are four words — four callings -- four habits — that grow out of the Bible — four words, four habits for the Christian life.

Notice with me the first habit: the habit of worship.

#1: We are called to WORSHIP

We are called to worship God.

The God of the universe, the Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Triune God calls us, invites us to worship Him.

And we find this call to worship God throughout Scripture.

We read it in places like Deuteronomy:

We hear it in the psalms:

We hear it from Jesus:

And worship is not merely commanded of us here on earth; worship is and will be the pattern of our new lives in heaven.

And so we move to the book of Revelation and as we sit here we overhear the worship happening there.

The 24 elders in heaven fall down before Jesus repeatedly and worship Him:

[SLIDE: WHY ARE WE TO WORSHIP GOD?]

Why are we to worship God?

Worship is what we were created for

We will inevitably worship something or someone

Why are we to worship God? Two reasons:

Worship is our first and original purpose; it is the reason for which God made us.

When God created Adam and Eve, he placed them in middle of a world in which even the animals and in some way even the trees and rocks and mountains gave glory to God “The heavens declare the glory of God”, King David announces in the 19th psalm, “the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1 ESV).

Adam and Eve were created and were placed in an environment where worship was already taking place.

We have been born into an environment where worship was already taking place.

We are to join the rest of creation by joining in with our own worship.

Worship is our first and original purpose.

The second reason God commands us to worship Him is simply this: we will worship something or someone.

“Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34 ESV).

You could no more stop worshiping than you could stop the earth in its orbit around the sun.

Something or someone will be the recipient of our affections, our loyalty, our allegiance, our obedience.

And whatever or whoever receives those things from us, that person or that thing is our idol.

But no idol will ever satisfy us.

We are made in the image of our Creator, and only the worship of our Creator brings us satisfaction.

[SLIDE: JONATHAN EDWARDS ON WORSHIP]

If man does not give his highest respect to the God that made him, there will be something else that has the possession of it.

Men will either worship the true God, or some idol.

It is impossible it should be otherwise; something will have the heart of man.

And that which a man gives his heart to may be called his god.

God made us to worship.

When we live lives of worship, we’re living out our original purpose.

Now there are a couple of misunderstandings when it comes to worship.

[SLIDE: TWO MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT WORSHIP]

Two misconceptions about worship:

Worship is not boring but a delight!

Worship is not just Sunday morning; it is your whole life

Do you know what the most common misconception about worship is?

It is that worship is boring.

Sometimes, we can look around Sunday mornings and see the boredom written on other people’s faces, and other people can look around at us and see it on ours.

Of course God is not fooled by our boredom.

I believe He is grieved by our boredom.

But here’s the thing about worship: it’s only boring if we misunderstand it.

Worship is never pictured as anything other than a joyful, grateful, awe-inspired, whole-person response to who God is and what He has done for us in Christ.

What’s the second misunderstandingg?

It’s that worship is something we do on Sunday mornings for 15 minutes before the sermon.

But here’s the other thing about worship: Worship is the sermon and the singing and the giving; worship is the meal we cook and serve our family at lunch; worship is the time we give to our kids and grandkids before bed; worship is the job we get up and give 40 hours or more too each week.

I challenge you, church, to begin asking God to show you how all of life — even the seemingly unimportant things — is worship.

Everything is important if God is glorified and remembered as we do that thing.

Now, spoiler alert: living a life of worship like this is hard — it’s worth it, but it is hard to begin living that way if all this time we’ve been saying, “Ok, I’m going to church, gonna get my hour of worship in, check that box, and then get back to work.”

Worship is a Monday through Saturday thing, not just a Sunday morning thing.

And to remember that, we need something to propel us into Monday and sustain us through Saturday.

What would that something be? [PAUSE] ....Ponder that.

Habit number two: grow.

We are called to grow.

#2: We are called to GROW

We are called to worship God.

We’re also called to grow.

The same God who invites us to worship Him also calls us and invites us to grow in Him.

And just like the call to worship, we find the call to grow all throughout Scripture.

The apostle Peter issues this call:

Peter is joined by the apostle Paul:

Philippians 3:13–14 (ESV)

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

[SLIDE: ARE WE GROWING?]

Are we growing?

Growing in our knowledge of God