Exalting God in Worship
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We are in our second week of our study, “Where Are We Going?”
Last week, we simply gave an overview of what the Bible shows us about where God wants us to go as a church.
We are starting this week looking the first of six purposes God gives the church.
We are actually beginning with the one we are strongest in, and that is worship.
Why start here? Well, because genuine worship is foundational to everything else we will do.
If we aren’t worshiping from the heart, we won’t share the gospel, grow in discipleship, or anything else.
With that in mind, if I say, “worship,” what immediately comes to mind?
If you haven’t spent much time at church, you might get a picture of people at a temple, bowing in front of an idol or offering a sacrifice of some kind.
I would imagine that most people in church think this—exactly what we have been doing for the last half hour. After all, we call this a worship service, so isn’t this worship?
As we will see this morning, I sure hope it is.
However, what we want to see this morning is that worship is more than just what happens here every Sunday morning with a band singing and a pastor preaching.
This can and certainly should be worship, but worship is much broader than what we often think.
Worship is one of those concepts that can be difficult to define. There are a multitude of definitions out there for what worship is.
Instead of giving us a dictionary definition of worship, though, I want us to look through a biblical passage where someone worshiped.
From there, we want to draw out a working definition of worship.
As we are going to see this morning, worship is when we see God as he is, see ourselves as we are, and respond in obedience.
We see that pattern in Isaiah 6, which is where we want to turn this morning.
To be fair, the word “worship” is not used in this passage. However, it is a powerful picture of the true nature of what it means to worship.
Isaiah is in a difficult season. This is the year that King Uzziah died, but we don’t know whether he has already died when Isaiah saw the vision or not. Uzziah was a king who started out as a godly man but became proud in his later years. Uzziah went into the temple and did what only priests were allowed to do, and God punished him with leprosy. He died a leper, unclean and isolated.
It is interesting, because what Isaiah sees takes place in the temple. We don’t know if he was in the literal temple and had a vision of what was going on in worship or if God pulled back the curtain, as it were, and helped Isaiah see what the temple in heaven looked like. Either way, what we see here shows that Uzziah disregarded who God really was.
Isaiah didn’t, though. His response to what takes place gives us a powerful picture of what it means to worship.
Let’s read the passage and then three observations about the nature of worship…
First, worship is...
1) Reflecting on who God is.
1) Reflecting on who God is.
In the middle of a troubling time, Isaiah saw God in a unique way.
That is, in some ways, a starting point for worship: worship involves seeing God as he is.
Let’s be clear up front: It is highly unlikely that you or I will have a vision of God like Isaiah did, at least until we get to see him face to face when he returns or when we go home to him.
However, there are times when we are reading the Bible and something we read either teaches us or reminds us of who God is in a unique way.
There are times when we are praying or thinking about God, and the Holy Spirit suddenly makes us aware of who God is in a unique way.
Perhaps we recognize his love or his mercy or his grace through what we read or what the Holy Spirit impresses on us.
Look at the things Isaiah noticed:
God has the position of honor, seated high above everyone and everything.
He saw his majestic robe that filled the temple in an even greater way than all the splendor of the royal ceremonies many of you have been watching over the last few weeks in England.
Above all else, he hears these angelic creatures loudly declaring over and over again that God is holy, holy, holy, and that his glory covers every corner of creation. Holiness speaks to a few different aspects of God: He is morally perfect in every way, and he is separated and distinct from anything in all the universe.
Isaiah had the privilege of seeing God as he really is in this vision God gave him.
Again, we may not receive a vision like Isaiah did, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know who God is.
When we take time to worship, we take time to focus on what we know about God.
We have his Word, where he has told us who he is and shown his character as he worked throughout history.
We take time to think about and sing about and talk about and act like God is all of these wonderful things—high, lifted up, glorious, majestic, holy, and much more.
As we do, we strive to cultivate an ongoing sense of wonder at who God is.
One of our church members, Dottie Borisuk, recently shared this quote with me:
“When we cease to wonder, we cease to worship.”
Worship is that discipline of recognizing who God is and cultivating that sense of wonder. Worship is fighting against the contempt of familiarity, and instead, allowing our deepening understanding of God to create a deeper awe of him.
When we are by ourselves, worship often involves meditating on Scripture and reflecting on all God has done.
We will look at some more specific examples of ways to worship in different aspects of our life next week, but since we are talking about God’s purposes for his church, let’s think about what worship looks like together for us.
One of the ways we worship together is by singing songs that point us to who God is and what he has done.
That’s something God has commanded us to do:
And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:
speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord,
giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Think about it: what Daniel and the team have been leading us through in the first portion of our service is a time for us to gather together and focus on who God is and what he has done through songs that point us to Christ.
Each week, we gather to pray to exalt God as he is. We gather to sing to him and with each other to declare who he is and what he has done, reminding us of what the week sometimes causes us to forget. We gather together to look at his Word, where he has explained what we need to know about him.
That’s why this is a worship service: because our desire is to get together and reflect on who he is.
There is more we see about worship, though.
As we see God as he is, we also find that worship is about...
2) Reflecting on who we are.
2) Reflecting on who we are.
What did Isaiah hear the cherubim shouting? “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.”
What was his response?
Reread verse 5...
In light of God’s holiness, Isaiah was struck with just how sinful he was.
He saw the moral goodness of God, the fact that there was nothing impure in him, and it immediately cut Isaiah straight to the heart.
He experienced what we call “conviction”—that moment where you become painfully aware of the distance between who God is and made you to be and who you actually are.
It is like we just sang a little bit ago: God is holy, and there is no one like him. We are weak, we fail, and we are nowhere near all he calls us to be.
Part of worship is acknowledging that if I stood before God in all my sin, I would be ruined, undone, and destroyed.
Did you notice that Isaiah wasn’t simply struck with a general sense of his sinfulness, although that is part of it?
Seeing God brought conviction to him in a specific area - “I am a man of unclean lips.”
There are times when worship brings just a general sense of how short we fall when compared to God, but there should be times when we experience specific conviction about a specific sin issue.
I remember when I was younger and a well-intentioned man at my church teaching me one time to make sure that, at bedtime, I asked God to forgive me of all my sins I commited during the day.
Here’s the problem: there are some days I have a hard time remembering what I had for breakfast, much less everything I said or did or thought in the course of the day.
Instead, as we grow to incorporate worship in our lives in greater ways, we allow God to cultivate in us an ongoing sense of who we are so that I begin to notice my sinfulness throughout the day.
I start to realize in the moment, “Man, I shouldn’t have let my mind go there. I shouldn’t have said that to or about that person. I should have been more gentle in my response or more generous with my giving or less concerned about what others think of me” or whatever that conviction is.
Weaving worship in our lifestyle keeps who God is and who I am closer to the front of my mind so I become more sensitive to sin as it happens.
I won’t always catch it right away, and neither will you, but as you grow in worship, you will get to see more and more who you are in light of who God is.
There is one more aspect of Isaiah’s vision here that I believe we sometimes neglect with worship. Worship involves me reflecting on who God is and who I am. Once I do, however, it also involves...
3) Responding in obedience.
3) Responding in obedience.
When we take time to reflect on who God is and realize who he says we are,
You may not always walk out of every service or every quiet time or every Bible study with some major life-change taking place.
However, true worship is going to be followed by a response.
Part of that response is praising God, reminding yourself and others that God is who he says he is.
However, look at how Isaiah handles what he has seen...
In verse 5, he cries out, painfully aware of the distance between him and God.
That is an exclamation of repentance, which is one of those church terms we don’t always understand.
Instead of becoming defensive or trying to sweep it under the rug, Isaiah cries out about how far off track he is and how good God is.
It isn’t just words for him; he realizes that apart from the mercy of God, Isaiah is going to die because he is so far from the holiness of God.
That is the first part of our response in worship: we cry out with a heart that wants to change because of what we have seen.
“God, I don’t want to doubt. I don’t want to misuse my words. I don’t want to keep sinning because you are too good for that.”
Did you see how God mercifully responds? Read verses 6-7...
As a symbol of God’s mercy, an angel takes a coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah’s lips, picturing God’s forgiveness and purification of Isaiah’s sin.
He responds with repentance, and God forgives.
It doesn’t stop there, though. Isaiah’s time of worship has led to a new understanding of forgiveness, and now he is ready.
Here’s where we see one of the most popular verses in the Bible…read verse 8
Isaiah has worshiped. He has seen God as he is, and Isaiah has seen how sinful he is.
He has received forgiveness after crying out to God in repentance, and now God issues a call: “Who will go for us?”
As far as we know, that’s all Isaiah knew. He didn’t have specifics or details about the assignment, he just heard God say, “Here I am. Send me.”
His time of worship led him to respond in repentance and obedience.
I know we have already been doing so, but with all this in mind, I want us to take some time together to put this into practice.
On the night before Jesus’ death, he gave his followers a ceremony we use to remember the incredible God we serve and the sacrifice he made. We call it “Communion” or “The Lord’s Supper”.
In just a minute, we are going to worship by joining together to take this small piece of bread and this small cup of juice.
These represent for us Jesus’s body that was broken for us and his blood that was shed for us.
Before we take the elements, let’s flip over to Isaiah 53 together.
This passage points us to the sacrifice Jesus would make on our behalf.
As I read it to you, worship as you see what this teaches us about Jesus and reveals about us.
Where God has convicted you about sin, respond with repentance and seek forgiveness.
Where you know you need to change and obey, respond in like Isaiah: Here I am, Lord; send me.”
Let’s read these verses, and then we will take the Lord’s supper as an act of worship together.