Sunday Worship: What's the Point? Or, Why Bother? #1: God, Not Us May 5, 2013

Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:26, 31-37, 40-47 (especially 26, 37, 45-47)

- Do you ever take the time on Sunday morning to take stock, and ask yourself why am I here? Why am I attending a Christian worship service?

- There are so many other things we could do with our Sunday morning.

- We could sleep in. We could read the paper. We could watch the news. We could spend time with our family or our spouse. We could dig in the garden or take some personal leisure time.

- But, for most of us here today, going to church on Sunday morning is a loyal habit. It's part of our regular schedule. It is something we do automatically. It's a part of our natural rhythm that we do on autopilot.

- Sunday comes, we get up, get breakfast, and get ready for church.

- Now, there's nothing wrong with worship being a part of our natural rhythms, that is to say, a regular habit.

- But now and then, it's important for us to put on the brakes and say to ourselves, "why do I bother, what's the point?"

- I think the answer to that question is longer than what we can deal with on a Sunday morning and raises more questions itself, some that are simple for us to answer.

- One question it raises for me is: can we accomplish our mission as God's people without meeting together for worship regularly and without hearts and minds that are focused upon worshiping God?

- What is our mission? Our mission is to be the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus in and for our community until the light of Christ shines in every home.

- I'm quite certain that we can't accomplish our mission without being devoted, committed, wholehearted worshipers of God. Of that I'm convinced.

- What about our vision?

- As a church, each member will be involved in ministries that reach out to each other, our families and community with fervent commitment, focussed compassion, and fruitful teamwork as we strive to meet needs and grow through evangelism, discipleship, and social action.

- Can we have an every member ministry that reaches out to our families and communities and beyond with fervent commitment, focused compassion and fruitful teamwork striving to meet needs and grow without being devoted, committed, wholehearted God worshipers? Can we have a successful every member ministry without worshipping God together regularly?

- I'm pretty sure we would all have to say no, we can't.

- Those are a couple of the short answers as to why we are here together.

- The longer answers begin with our longing for God.

- Former inter-varsity staff worker Dr. John Bowen used to say that all of us have a God-shaped hole in our hearts that can only be filled by him.

- We are all "god-aholics" and will continue to try to fill that hole in our hearts with other things.

- Until we recognize our "god-aholism" and allow the one true God to fill the God-shaped hole in our lives, we will keep trying to fill it with everything but God.

- There is a hole in our hearts and lives where God belongs, and he has put that longing within us.

- That hole can only be filled by God's presence through a lifestyle of devoted worship of God.

- As we see in the life of young David, before he is crowned King of Israel, David had a lifestyle of devoted God worship.

- God was at the forefront of his mind and his thinking, his heart and his actions. 

- The praise and knowledge of God that came from David's mouth in worship became part of his regular life.

- David did not simply worship God on the Sabbath without it affecting his whole life. His Sabbath worship of God worked out into his actions and his speech causing him to live out his faith in God.

- God transformed David's life through worship, making him a man of integrity and using him as a man of integral mission, i.e., being, saying, and doing what is good and right and true on God's behalf, carrying out God's mission.

- Real worshipers want more of God, longing only after him.

- David's experience of God through worship deeply impacted his life.

- We find a great example of this worship lifestyle in 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath.

- Being the youngest in the family and having several older brothers David was responsible to stay home and look after the sheep during wartime.

- It was also David's responsibility to take food to his brothers while they were away at war.

- The Bible tells us that David was taking food to his three oldest brothers who were at war, when he learned of the challenge of the Philestine, Goliath of Gath.

- David had a "who-does-this-guy-think-he-is" response to the threats of Goliath, as verse 26, says,

- "For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" (26b)

- Putting God worship first in his life gave David a big picture point of view and the courage to raise the question about who's bigger, Goliath, or God.

- By insulting and challenging the armies of Israel, Goliath was insulting and challenging God.

- Now, David's brother tried to put him in his place and David responded, telling Eliab, "I only said a word, I just asked a question."

- Well, word of David's question got back to King Saul, so Saul sent for David and had a conversation with David about Goliath.

- David not only had the courage to raise the question, but he knew from experience that God is bigger.

- Listen to what David said: "Your servant has struck down, both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God." And David said, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." (36-37)

- Through his experience of God, David knew God's power, giving David the courage to tell the King that God's power is able to deliver.

- But there's still more.

- David's experience of God not only gave him the courage to speak. It also gave him the courage to act.

- David went out to meet Goliath in front of both armies, the Philistines and the Israelites, and there was Goliath, a hulk of a man and a professional soldier, insulting David and mocking him and making fun of him because he was barely even young man.

- How many of us would have been so intimidated by such a scene that we would have fled?

- But not David, David's confidence was not in himself. David's confidence was in the living God.

- Just as he responded to the mocking of Goliath, "You come to me with sword and with spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand...that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand." (45-47)

- Because David put God first, every day in his life, David understood that he wasn't fighting life's battles by himself.

- In fact, David understood because of his relationship with God that his confidence belonged in God and in God's ability to fight and in God's ability to empower David to overcome hardship and danger.

- In his heart and in his mind, in his speech and in his actions, David depended upon God alone.

- We see this dependence modelled in the life of Jesus.  Jesus was always ever only concerned with doing his Father's will.

- What does this have to do with Sunday morning worship?

- Real worshipers want more of God, longing only after him.

- Too many of us think that worship is about us, what we do.

- But worship is not about us; worship is about God.

- While 1 Samuel 17 is not about worship. It is about the kind of life which places God first above all things, which comes from a lifestyle of worship.

- David was zealous to put God first in his life and in the life of God's people. It showed in his words and in his actions.

- Do we have hearts like David's? Do we place all our confidence and hope in God?

- Worship is about practicing together placing our hope in God.

- Real worship is not about what kind of songs we sing, what translation of the Bible we use, how much we put in the offering plate, it's not about liturgical dance, incense, icons, symbols or the pastor's preaching. 

- Real worship is about longing after God and being inspired to continue longing after God daily.

- Real worshipers want more of God, longing only after him.