What is Worship?-Doug Crum

Sunday's sermon presented by Doug Crum 07/12/26


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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

If I were to borrow the format of Jeopardy, I would say that it is private and that it is mournful and that it is humbling. I would say that it's public and it's joyful, that it's earnest and heartfelt. I would say, I would say that it's trust. I mean real trust. And it's submission, and it's obedience, and it is adoration. And that's how I would answer what is worship. We've been talking about this over the last several weeks, especially when we looked at Abraham in Genesis 22 heading up towards the mountain to which he is going to sacrifice his son that he loves in his old age and has to be scared and confused, but he takes these continual steps of obedience and then he calls that worship. But that's not what we typically think of worship as. We think of what we're doing right now as worship. Not everybody probably has that. It's only for like really the special people. And I asked the question, um, what is worship? Uh, and so um we're going to look at the the first 15 pictures, photos, images that came up from Mr. Google um as to worship.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Just number one, worship. Pay close attention.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Worship. Image number three.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Four I think AI joined in on this one, because nobody should have arms quite that long. I don't I don't know what's going on, but like his like he his knuckles must literally drag the ground. I mean, those are just huge. Look at that wingspan. That's worship. That's what Google says is worship.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

And this one too. And this is worship.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

And this, it even has it on here, what it is.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Lots, lots and lots of lights, and people and hands. Another version, and and another one, and another one.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

And uh do you see a theme here? Worship and worship and worship and and and one more in case we missed it. Worship. So according to our culture, or at least what uh Google has suggested our culture thinks worship is, are those 15 images plus several thousand more. I I I want to take just a moment and I want to be careful. I don't want you to misunderstand me. Uh, I'm not suggesting that what we just witnessed was not worship. I'm I'm not here to judge worship. In fact, that's the one thing I want to say we ought not to do is judge worship. However, if I were talking to someone and I say, tell me about nature, and they say, Hey, let me show you a picture of this mountain. And I'm like, Yes, that's nature. And they say, let me show you another picture of nature. And then they they flip over, and the next one is the picture of this beautiful, tall mountain. Ooh. And then they say, let me show you another picture of nature. Oh, I can't wait to see it. And they flip it over, and guess what? It's oh, it's it's big and it's beautiful, and it's it's rocky, and it's got snow on. It's a mountain. And they continue to show me picture after picture after picture. And and I'm not asking what the Rockies look like. I want to know what I want to see a sunset in there. I want to see a tall tree. I want to see a desert. I want to see the the oceans crashing in. That is nature. And I think somehow we've bought into this idea that this right here is worship, or that right there is worship, and we forget that worship is something so much bigger. And so, what I want to do for just a few minutes, I want to try to just take away this idea that worship only happens when we come together and meet. That it's more than just sitting in chairs or a fog machine or lights. It's more than just hands raised, which is an appropriate form of worship. But there are other ways, and so how I want to go about this is pretty simple. I just want to look at a few instances in the Bible. There's over 250 times that worship is mentioned in the Bible, uh, 179 times in the Old Testament, 75 times in the New Testament, and we'll talk a little bit later on what those Hebrew and Greek words mean. But I want to just look at how they portrayed worship in the Bible. And the one that we just finished with was, of course, Abraham taking his son up the mountain to sacrifice him. He said that would be worship. One book over in Exodus, God is speaking to Moses at the burning bush, and he says, I'm gonna give you proof that I'm God. He says, You're gonna go into Egypt, you're gonna come out with a bunch of people following you, and you will worship me here on this mountain. That's how you will know that I am God. It's really interesting to me that he said, This is how you'll know that I'm God, that you'll worship here. He could have said, Hey, I'm gonna show you all of these plagues that are gonna take place, but he says, No, the proof that I'm God is that you will come together and you will worship. A generation later, after the Israelites have made it out of Egypt through the desert, they're in the promised land, they've done the conquering, they're about to go back to their homes, and Joshua says to them, Hey, you need to choose who you're gonna serve. Because there are all these gods around you. You choose who you're gonna serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua understood that worship was a conscious decision that must be made every day. We know several stories about Gideon, uh, but one of the ones that I love is when God has called him to go against uh the mighty Midianites. There's a hundred and thirty five thousand soldiers. He starts off with a crew of about 30,000. That's he's already outnumbered, and God says that is way too many. And you know, Gideon has to say, God, yeah, you're awesome, but you're terrible at math. Like, we need more people, and God says you need less and less and less, and ultimately he's gonna whittle down that group to 300 people, and he's gonna take away their weapons, and he says, you are gonna defeat the Midianites. Excuse me, I am going to defeat the Midianites. And Gideon the night before goes down into their camp and he hears the fear and their voices because they understand what God can do. And with just 300 soldiers several miles away, surrounded by a hundred and thirty-five thousand soldiers, Gideon worships there surrounded by the enemy. And then there's our good friend Elkanah, who every year out of obedience, he goes up to the temple to worship, and he takes with him his wife Hannah.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

And Hannah is broken. And Hannah is mournful and she's depressed.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Because Hannah is barren. And while her husband goes there to worship, she finds herself in the temple, but her worship looks a little different. She's pleading before God, she's she's begging to God, she's crying out, she's sobbing. And the priest, Eli, sees what's going on and goes up to her and says, Woman, you gotta stop your drinking and get out of this temple.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

And she's just you're misunderstanding.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

This is just me pouring out everything that I have to a God that I so desperately need.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

I don't know about you.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

But I want my worship to be so genuine and so heartfelt that people tap me and say, Are you okay? Like, is something wrong with you? Like, when was the last time we had to administer a breathalyzer because we thought somebody was worshiping too fully? This worship should be filled with emotion. And sometimes, at least for myself, I can get caught up into okay, and now we'll be singing verse 2. But what if worship is something more than just that? I love in 2 Samuel chapter 6, David is coming back towards Jerusalem, uh, and right behind him is the Ark of the Covenant, and he is so excited that he is singing and he's dancing. And I love the phrase that they have to describe his dancing. I think it might be something like I would do. It said, he danced before the Lord with all his might. That's probably not a word I want to use to describe my dancing. It should be fluid and graceful. I I mean, like, it's almost like he's risking pulling a hamstring. Like he's that into it. He's so excited. This is the best ever. The Ark of the Lord has come back. There's nothing I can do but be excited, and he's dancing around, and there's the linen ephod, and and his wife Michael, he comes into the house. He's so excited that you know the glory of the Lord has has finally come back into the city, and she says, How dare you!

SPEAKER_01 12:18

My dad would have never done that, dancing like that in front of those servant girls. David's like, I will stop at nothing to worship my God.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Even if I look like six chapters later.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

David has committed a series of terrible sins that include adultery, murder, and lie after lie after lie. And finally, through the prophet Nathan, God calls him out and says, You're the man. You're the one who has done all of this.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

And God says there will be punishment for this. And so this little baby boy born to Bashe buried him.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

And David worshiped God.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

He's fasting, he's weeping, he's crying out. So much so that when the boy finally does die, the servants and friends of David are afraid to go tell him. They're like, if if he's acting this crazy while the child is alive, what is gonna happen when we tell him that he's dead?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

And they let him know David stands up and he goes and he cleans himself, and then he goes to worship.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

The same person who worshiped God by dancing and jumping and singing was also the same man who worshiped God as he fell on his face and he pleaded. And then, of course, there is these guys named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednica. They believe that worship should only go to God and no one else, and they are forced to decide what are you gonna do? You can bow down and worship this idol, or we can throw you into the fire and you can burn to death. And I love the response. They said, God will save us.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

But even if he doesn't, we will worship no one else but God alone. No matter what happens.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Story after story throughout the Bible, we have Solomon who prays at the dedication of the temple, and fire comes down and consumes all the sacrifices, and the people fell down on their faces, and they began worshiping God right then. Job, after losing his sheep and his camels, and his servants and his donkeys and his sons and his daughter, he gets up, he tears his robe, he puts on sackcloth, he shaves his head, and then he falls to the ground in what? Worship. Is it possible that worship is something more than what happens here in this place? Our good friend David would later write, come, let us sing with joy to the Lord, let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. We we've heard this before, for the Lord is a great God, he's a great king above all gods. In his hands are the depths of the earth, the mountain peaks belong to him, the sea is his, he made it, and his hands form the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before our Lord, our God, our Maker, for we, for he is our God, and we are the people of this pasture, the flock under his care. In one psalm, David says, Come and shout for joy to the Lord, and come worship and bow down before him. You see, worship happens in so many different ways. For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the way that they chose to worship God was to defy the culture that would put anything else ahead of God. Worship can be setting down your phone rather than staring at it. Worship can be choosing to serve God over money or career or sports or happiness or retirement or entertainment. Then there's this story in the Bible, you probably haven't heard of it. It's about some sailors who decided to throw a runaway prophet overboard. Something that they did reluctantly, even though Jonah insisted. Oh, wait, you probably have heard of this guy before. As Jonah is seeking down to the depths of the sea to be swallowed by a fish, the sailors were up on the boat, they're making vows and offering sacrifices. They are worshiping. And for these wise men who came bearing gifts, they found themselves at the feet of an infant.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

And there they bowed down, they worshiped him, and they presented gifts. Worship does not just have does not just have to happen. It can happen in a hospital room. It can be visiting a family with a newborn. It can be checking on someone who's sick, hurting, or just broken.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Paul writes in Romans chapter 12, arguably one of the most powerful chapters in the whole Bible, where he outlines what worship is. He says, Therefore, brothers, I urge you, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

This is your true and proper worship.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Worship is an act of obedience of the heart. It is a response that requires the very core of who you are to the love uh to love the Lord for who he is and for not just what he does. You see, worship can happen in a room or at work or in a backyard or an auditorium or a street or at a grocery store or in the cab of your truck. Worship can and ought to happen in really big groups and outside and in hospital rooms and at the airport and the water cooler and the football stadium and the dinner table. Worship is what you were made to do. Let me say this again. Worship is what you were made to do. You might be good at a lot of things. We have some ladies in here who are really good at quilting. They do it every Tuesday morning. They're in there and they're quilting away, and that is awesome. That is a form of worship. There's also a group of guys who meet also on Tuesday. They're really good at eating. And so they get together and they eat. They like to eat food, and the women like to quilt, and all of us can find ways in which we worship God. What you were created to do was to worship God, to point to God. This is exactly what the rest of creation does already. Think about this the birds they sing, they sing to God. And the wind, when it blows, it blows for God. And the sea, it roars, it roars. Because God has called it to, and the mighty pine points to heaven, because that's the way that God created the tree and what it is called every tree to do. In obedience to its maker, the earth rotates at the exact speed it was intended to. And it does so out of worship. Worship is obedience. Somehow we've bought into a lie that we come here to enter into worship, and when we leave here in a few minutes, it will stay in here. Someone cleverly came up with what is known as the worship evolution. This idea of this is where worship began, over here, face down to the ground in a bowed position, and slowly we've come to a point where we think that worship has to be some sort of entertainment that we enjoy. And so let me tell you what worship is not. It's not relegated to a certain posture or a place or an event or a time. Worship is not intended for your entertainment or benefit. And worship should never be a place of judgment. I don't know why, but for many of us, we assume that worship is something that ought to be graded. And it's as if God has tapped us on the shoulder and handed us the red pen and said, I want you to decide if the gift that was brought by other people today to me, I want you to determine if it's actually acceptable. And so we leave here and we grade, assess, and judge worship. We say things like, the singing was okay, or the sermon was too long. We say things like, I wish they would sing different songs. If the songs were newer and faster, or I really wish we could sing some of those slow hymns again. People will walk out of here and say, I didn't like the preacher. And to that I will say, get in line. Start a group. I don't care. Because this worship is not about me. And it's certainly not about what you think about me. Worship is obedience and adoration and submission and trust. We sometimes say things like, I don't think we should have sang all four verses to that song. Or it's weird when she raises her hands in the middle of a song. I want you to know if you think that the service was prepared for you, that the songs are sung for you, that the message was spoken for your pleasure or entertainment or benefit, you missed why we're here at all. We are here for God and God first, every single time. This is not about us. This is not about me. This is not about how you feel or what you like or what you think you should deserve to hear. Worship is trust and obedience to God. Both the Hebrew and the Greek words for worship refer to the bowing down in reverence and in humility and in obedience. And I just want to close out with this. Why is this such a big deal? Why is bowing such a big deal? Well, you really have to go back and imagine the posture that is being taken when someone bows down. In the ancient world, one would prostrate himself, bow down before a king to show both trust and submission. Because by taking this posture, they do two things.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

One they expose their neck, and two they avert their eyes. Taking this position before a king says, I am sticking out my neck. And if you are going to chop it off, here it is for you. And you look with your eyes to the ground. Because not only are you offering your life to that king, you're giving him your trust. And you're saying, I'm not afraid to give you my life. I want you to have it all. Doing so makes you utterly defenseless. This is symbolic of what our worship is and what it ought to be. It's not what songs are we singing. I I'll be incredibly confessional to you right now. I don't know what you think about this, but I I I don't know that it matters. Um we sang a song earlier. Oh, it's one of my favorite songs. So I'll throw up my hands and praise you again and again. Because all that I have is a Hollywood.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

I mean, it's just like I can't even keep my hands down when I do that. I I just think of that and there's a big part of me that just says when it says I throw up my hands, I I want it to look like the Cowboys just scored a touchdown. And it doesn't happen very often, so we have to get excited. Like, like when I say when I throw up my hands, like I I I mean I want my I it's really hard to do because I've I grew up like most of you did. Like I just like I want my hands to go straight uh I want my hands to go straight. Not just one, I want both of them to I want to say, God, this is all you and I don't ever do it. And I don't ever do it. And it's not because because I'm embarrassed to do it. It's because I don't, I don't, I don't want any attention drawn to me, and I don't want to distract any one of you from worshiping. But if I got to choose the way I wanted to worship, if I knew it wasn't gonna distract you, like my hands would be up the whole time. Like this is I can't believe this is God. This is the best thing ever. He took the worst person ever, like the most broken person ever, which I'm pretty sure is me. Paul says it's him, but like I think I can win that award. And he saved me, he rescued me like like when there was no hope, when I was doomed, when I was damned, when I was going to hell, when I would never, ever get to be in the presence of God. He says, I'm going to sacrifice. Not you, not your son, me and my son. I'm gonna give everything and I'm gonna be like, yes, thank you. Like I'm so undeserving of it. I think of my kids and what they get because of Jesus, and I'm like, yes, thank you. And then I think about all of you and what Jesus has done for you and your kids and your neighbors, and he takes away your brokenness and your shame, and he says, I'm cleaning you off, I'm I'm setting you on a rock, and I want you to know that my promise is good. And I'm like, yes, yes, we don't deserve this. Yes, thank you, thank you. I will never ever be able to repay you. Thank you. And I just, I don't, if your worship is this, if it is hands in your pockets and you're sitting on your hands, and that's the way you worship, God bless your worship. May it be the most heartfelt worship, but let it be out of trust and obedience and out of submission and adoration. And if the person beside you, if they can't sit on their hands, if the only way that they can find to worship God is to lift their hands up in the air and say, thank you, God, my prayer is that you will sit there with your hands in your pockets, and you will worship God just as courageously as the person who has their hands in the air.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

And when you leave this place, find ways to worship God.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

None of these examples that we looked at, none of them, almost none of them, Hannah's did, almost none of the rest happened in the form of a corporate worship in a church building. All of these people worshiped in difficult times, and they did it every day. And so my prayer for you is to say, God, just let me trust you.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

I'm bowing my head. I'm giving my life. I want it to be yours. Because I don't want anything other than you. That's my prayer for all of us. I want you to make that your prayer for my life.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

I'm asking you that you help me to worship God with all that I have and not let it be anything else, and I will pray the same for you.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Let it just be people who come with different gifts and lift them up to God. We could do this individually, we ought to do this alone, but we come to do this together because we're a family. God created us to be a family. And he could have said, you know what?

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Go live your lives and your Christianity alone. But instead he says, I want you to come together with people, some of them that you don't really like, some of them that are gonna raise their hands, and some of them are gonna put their hands in their pockets. I want you to come together and worship. And then he calls them a family, he calls them a body, and that's what we are.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

We're we're the body of Christ. And we want this body to glorify him, and we want to encourage you, we want to ask you, would you like to be a part of this body?

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Help bring your gifts so that we can all come together and lift our voices and our hands and our worship up to God, and we want to ask you to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Maybe you've never really made God the Lord of your life. Maybe Jesus is just something you sing about on Sunday, but but I want to encourage you today. I want to encourage you to take your worship seriously.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

If if you've not chosen to follow him, I'm gonna encourage you, I'm gonna ask you, I'll beg you, come up here and say, I I I want to follow this Jesus. We have some water back in here. We could talk about this all day. Uh in the New Testament, it talks about being immersed in Jesus, going completely down, being covered, washed by him, buried and raising new. We we want to offer that to you today. Like you can have that today. You can have a new life. If you made that decision years, decades ago, and now you're just, you know, your prayers are cold and your heart is hard and you're just lost and broken. I want you to know God will take you back right now. He welcomes you back with open arms. If we can help you, pray with you, help in any way. If you want to identify with us, if you want to be baptized, we want to invite you to come and join us this morning as we continue our worship in song. Chad, be standing.