Sunday Worship: What's the Point? Or, Why Bother? # 2: Worship First

Last time, we looked at an example from the life of David, the lead into his confrontation with the hulking Goliath of Gath.

- Today, we're going to continue to look at David by looking at David's expressions of worship, since he was, after all, "a man after God's own heart."

- As followers of Jesus, the Son of David & Son of God, Christians are David's spiritual children as well as Christ's. 

- We need to cultivate in our lives the spiritual legacy of worship first, above all things because it helps us to put God first.

- We worship like David worshipped when we make worshipping God our number one.

- That statement causes me to ask a question: how did David worship?

- The answer may be found in many of the Psalms, which David wrote because they are a written record of David's personal spiritual life.

- How did David worship?

- First, as we saw last week, we worship like David when we approach worship as a walk.

- In Psalm 15, David asks, "Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart;" (1-2, NIV)

- In the 23rd Psalm, David, wrote, "Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

- In Psalm 56, David wrote, " I am under vows to you, my God; I will present my thank offerings to you.  For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling
that I may walk before God in the light of life." (12-13, NIV)

- In Psalm 101, David wrote, "I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me." (2-3, ESV)

- And again in verse 6, "I will look with favor on the faithful in the land that they may dwell with me; he who walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me." (ESV)

- So, according to David's own experience, worshiping God isn't just about showing up on Sunday morning.

- It's about a worship lifestyle, a life of integrity, and it's about being open to experiencing the presence of God throughout all of life's moments.

- Worship is walking with God as a way of life.

- Second, we worship like David when we worship without compromise.

- Uncompromising worship is worship that is: wholehearted rather than half-hearted, lavish rather than stingy, passionate rather than feeble or indifferent.

- Listen to how David describes it in Psalm 27:4.

- "One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple." (NIV)

- God was the earnest desire of David's heart.

- In Psalm 26:8, David, wrote, "Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells."

- David opens Psalm 18 with these words, "I love you, Lord, my strength. ² The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold." (1-2, NIV)

- David was nothing if not passionate about his God.

- Worship without compromise is wholehearted, lavish and passionate.

- Third, we worship like David, when our worship witnesses.

- As David wrote in Psalm 57:9, "I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples."

- David didn't hide his worship from the rest of the world. He made it public.

- He expected God would draw the unbelieving world back to himself through David's passionate worship and through their experience of God in David's worship.

- As David wrote in Psalm 40:3, "He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him."

- And in the last five verses of Psalm 22, which plainly foreshadows Jesus' crucifixion, the main idea is witness.

- "All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
 for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
    those who cannot keep themselves alive.
 Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord.
 They will proclaim his righteousness,
    declaring to a people yet unborn:
    He has done it! (27-31, NIV)

- Our worship is supposed to witness.

- What can we learn from this?

- David took worship very seriously, as the leader of God's people. Worship was David's number one.

- And he didn't just take it seriously because it was something the Holy Spirit gifted him to do because God commanded all his people to worship him.

- In the 10 Commandments that God gave his people at Sinai through Moses, the first four commandments have to do with putting God first and worshiping only him.

- Jesus himself placed worship first and taught others the same. The first and greatest commandment is to love God fully, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

- So then, worship must be number one for the church.

- Upon the birth of the church when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers at Pentecost, we see that the church devoted themselves to "the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers."

- That sounds like worship! Of course, it had to be worship.

- In first Peter chapter 2, Peter describes worship as the number one purpose of the church.

- He wrote, "As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house…"

- What for?

- "To be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."  That sounds like worship.

- Again, Peter wrote, "you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood of holy nation, a people belonging to God..."

- What for?

- "That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

- Again, that sounds like worship.

- Plainly, God is making it clear that the number one priority for his people is to worship him.

- We worship like David worshipped when we make worshipping God our number one.

- Why must worshiping God be our number one?

- Worship must be our number one because of God's great rescue plan, his mission.

- In his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said, "a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." (John 4: 23, NIV)

- God is seeking true worshipers.

- God is looking for people from every tribe and language and people and nation who will worship him.

- The ultimate goal of the church is not evangelism for evangelism’s sake.

- God doesn't want people that only have fire insurance faith.

- God wants more, better worshipers.

- If we wonder why our witness is weak, why more people aren't coming to Christ, why we are bored, why worship seems flat, or why we are stuck in a rut, then we need to examine ourselves, our relationship with God and the priority that we give to worshiping God seven days a week.

- We worship like David worshiped when we make worshiping God our number one.