The Why Of My Worship

help if you walked in today not feeling full of the love of god not having a sense and and i'm not really putting this on any specific person you you can be coming to church and still lack if you walked in today i hope that god has been abundantly clear this morning you don't have to walk in empty and walk out empty you can walk in empty and walk out full you can walk out overflowing you can walk out with abundance and i believe that's what the lord has come to do this morning is to pour out his love an abundant measure in an abundant amount that would fill our lives beyond the brim and begin to spill over in praise begin to spill over and worship not only in your life but in the lives of others i believe he's here to do that this morning if you need it if you need it you can have it god wants to give his love his love is always flowing it's always being poured out it truly is up to us simply to open up and receive and receive the love can't help but think that god has set us up today to hear a very pointed and specific word i've been praying a prayer recently and it was simple it's god i i want you to speak clearly i want you to speak clearly sometimes we can hear a word or we can hear god's voice and there might be some question in it we might question ourselves whether we heard correctly or question some other things but i believe god wants to speak clearly today i don't think he wants there to be any question any wondering any doubt any looking back over memories and saying well i don't know if that's really what god said he wants to be clear today he wants to speak to us and i believe he wants to continue to speak to us about his love about his love i want to read a portion of scripture and i'll be quick i'm cognizant of the time i'm going to read a portion of scripture we'll pray i'll have you be seated and i believe god wants to speak i'm always curious if you stay standing just for a little bit for this portion of scripture then i'll have you be seated i've always found it curious whenever i listen to scripture and i read scripture and i hear the prayers of apostles or i hear the prayers of new testament writers i always pay attention i want to know what they were praying for i want to know what they were praying about because it helps me understand what's important so in ephesians 3 paul is writing he says for this reason i kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name i pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit and your inner being so that christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and i pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of christ and to know this love and to know this love that surpasses knowing so that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of god to summarize paul's prayers that we would grapple with the love of god the intense and passionate love of god for us and when we do that when we get a hold of the love of god in our life then we can as he says be filled with the measure of all the fullness of god we've got to get the love of god first and foremost and then everything else flows from it

father i pray you help us today you've already been speaking you've already been working god you've already been showing us your love and i i believe that you want to continue to show us and continue to speak to us i pray you give us wisdom give us understanding this morning god i pray you lead us on this journey so that we could know your love not just in our heads not just understanding it jesus but knowing it and experiencing it help us to sense and feel and experience your love this morning god lead us lead us today in jesus name we pray and everybody said amen amen you can go ahead and be seated

i want to preach you from this this title this thought the why of my worship the why of my worship and i need to define some terms real quick there's something that i do with with the outlet student ministries before pre-service prayer and wednesday nights and that is i have them hold their finger up i have them point themselves in the chest and you say i'm here well on wednesday is the time here to pray we're getting ahead of ourselves on wednesdays i am here to pray in pre-service prayer but sunday morning i come up to you and i have you do the same thing point yourself in the chest and i have you say i am here to worship so let me define those terms real quick whenever i'm talking about i am here to them on a sunday morning i'm talking about this building i'm talking about why we have dedicated this time in this space to the lord but for today's word what i mean by that is why i exist i am here i exist i am on the face of this planet to worship and the context of sunday morning worship might be lifted up hands it might be crying it might be running an aisle or jumping up and down it might be a new a number of things but for the sake of this sermon what i mean by worship is i mean a life of worship a life lived to glorify and praise god psalm 119 tells us this says the heavens declare the glory of god and the skies proclaim the work of his hands day after day they pour forth speech night after night they reveal knowledge they have no speech they're stars they use no words no sound is heard from them yet their voice goes out into all the earth their words to the ends of the world there is something the psalmist tells us about the stars about the heavens there's something about their existence that is designed simply to worship god that is the reason they're there that's the reason they're hanging out in the galaxies and then the universe the reason they exist is to declare the worship and praise of god and can i tell you the same thing is true of human beings that god created us for his good pleasure we exist as the people of god to pour forth praise unto him and about him we exist just to do that and if you really think about it if god made us if we exist because of his will he created us then any demands he would put on our life that would be something we should do right because he made us we exist for whatever he wants because he's our creator and that's true and i and i can tell you that and and i can talk about we this is our reason for existing but what i want to talk about today is not the fact that we must worship or we should worship but i want to talk about the why the why of our worship or the want-to aspect of that worship i'm here to worship because that's what i was made to do yes but i also want to i also have a reason i also have a foundation from which all of my worship stems from all of my worship is built on paul summarizes what i think to be the human experience when it comes to god in our life in ephesians chapter 2. in verse 1 he says as for you you were dead in your transgressions and sins as for you as you as for you human beings you were dead and your transgressions and sins skipping to verse 4 he says but because of his great love for us god who is rich in mercy made us alive with christ even when we were dead in transgressions and to put a point on it he make sure we understand it is by grace that you have been saved you didn't figure this out this was the love and mercy of god that stepped into a life that was just dead and made it alive again and not only are we alive just to live the same existence but verse 6 tells us that god also raised us up with christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in christ jesus not only are we alive again to live the same kind of life but we are alive again to live in a new way of life to experience a newness and an abundance of life this is paul's wonderful summary of the human experience if you want a summary of the whole bible about all of sin and god's redemption and rescuing ephesians 2 isn't a bad spot you could just read that but i've got a little bit more to say paul's talking about the story of sin across history

and we know the story of adam and eve adam and eve are created god creates them breathes life into their lungs he is the source of all their life and he says hey you can do whatever you want i created this wonderful place for you you can eat of any tree you can you could build a rope swing you you could do literally whatever all expense paid vacation to eden you can do whatever it's going to be great but it gives them one command he says i just have this one thing you can't eat this tree it's knowledge of good and evil don't touch that tree one command y'all one command but then temptation sets in as they're told the oldest lie the original lie that brings forth sin and that is that you can say no to god and yes to yourself and end up just as happy and just as fulfilled the oldest lie in the bible is you can say no to god and say yes to your own ways of doing things and end up just as happy and even more so going about your own way adam and eve were told this lie they believed it and they acted in a disobedient manner and sin entered the world as the divine know rang out through the rest of time and we're still experiencing the effects of that no today and when we say no to other things scripture is very clear isaiah 59 says this says surely the arm of the lord is not too short to save he's in the business of saving nor his ear too dull to hear he he could hear us verse two but your iniquities your sins have separated you from god your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear one of the bleakest realities about sin and the world is that it separates us it cuts us off from god it cuts us off from the very life source that brings purpose and peace and abundance it puts a blockade in between us and god and it's not simply that we can go about our life and we can build another life without god and it be just as good and be just as great okay i can't know god but i can still do all right i can still make some things happen that's not true either because jeremiah 2 tells us that when we build a life on our own without god we ultimately build a life that cannot that cannot hold water it can't hold purpose it can't hold peace jeremiah 2 says this my people have committed two sins they have forsaken me the spring of living water they have cut themselves off from life itself but not only this they've dug their own cisterns they've tried to build their own life come up with their own purpose come up with their own understanding of the way of doing things but these cisterns are broken cisterns and they cannot hold water scripture is very clear that when we separate ourselves from life itself there is nothing left to do except die there is nothing left to do except i there's no better example of this human rebellion than at the crucifixion and the gospels as god incarnated himself hung there he did so at the hands of his own creation the creator and flesh hung on a cross crucified by his creation those who held the very breath of god in their lungs made the source of that breath breathe his last and die they gave him the ultimate no they gave him the ultimate severance between god and themselves they gave them they that creation gave god another divine no and sin once again would have appeared to one to have won sin got us to a point where we died because we no longer had connection to god sin tricked us into giving god that no in our life that tricked us into telling god no to his plans no to his purpose for our life no to his commands no to his word no to his expectations for our life sin tricked us into buying into that original lie that we would be okay without god we did not need him and because we have believed this lie at times we have severed the tie between ourselves and life itself

moses makes it clear in deuteronomy as he presents the law to the children of israel he says in deuteronomy 30 says this day i call heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that i have set before you life and death blessings and curses now choose life choose to obey god choose to say yes to his love choose to say yes to his commands choose to say no to yourself and act in the affirmative towards god choose life so that you and your children may live and that you may love the lord your god listen to his voice and hold fast to him for the lord is your life for the lord is your life if you say no to the lord you lose life itself he says and he will give you if you say yes to him he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers abraham isaac and jacob this was the promise then and this is the choice then and it's still the choice today i set before you today life and death israel throughout its history mostly chose death we know that when we read the old testament it's the most frustrating book for most of it they normally chose death they chose to forfeit their connection to god forfeit their connection to life itself and truthfully if we're honest today this is the path that most of us have taken at any point in time in our life and it's it's that we just naturally choose this we we naturally choose our way over god's way and it's not always intentional it's not like we're sitting there and we're like this is how i'm going to say no to god today you wake up in the morning you rub the stuff out of your eyes you're like time to go in rebellion against the lord today that's not how we do things right that would be weird if we're voicing that there's something really wrong right so it's not that we do that it's not that we wake up and this is our attitude but sometimes we just choose things that we think will make us happy and fulfilled in our own life and those things are devoid of god it just happens sometimes doesn't it you're sitting there and you're hanging out with that group of friends and you just realize oh my goodness this is this is an unholy conversation this is an unholy situation i'm in or are you watching that show and all of a sudden it clicks oh my goodness if jesus was in here he would be very disappointed that i'm watching the show and and eventually we just traveled down that rabbit hole long enough we're not again we're not making that conscious choice we're just choosing other things we're just choosing to say yes to other things and normally what happens is that when we choose our way long enough because we're without god we are left empty we are left broken we are left without purpose we are left without meaning we're left with scars we're left with wounds we're left with mistakes we're left with disappointments and shame and disgrace and sin when we choose our own way long enough this is just the natural outflow of what happens when we say yes to ourselves yes to our own way and ultimately yes to sin and no to god we end up in this state we end up in this moment of hopelessness

but please hear me today it is at this point when we deserve the love and involvement of god in our life the least it is at this moment that god steps in and rescues and god steps in and redeems and god steps in and shows us his love romans 5 6-8 says you see that at just the right time when we were still powerless christ died for the ungodly and then paul goes on he says rarely would anyone die for a righteous person this is sort of a rare thing and and maybe maybe just maybe for a good person someone might possibly dare to die but god demonstrates or shows his love to us in this way that while we were still sinners while we were still choosing our own way while we were still choosing our own path while we were still saying no to god and yes to other things christ died for us you see god knew our weaknesses he knew our failings he knows the places that we hide from everyone else and he knows that we put a front up sometimes to make us look like we're doing okay he knew that we would say no to him he knew our mistakes he he knew the problems that would be in our lives but he still loved us anyway he still chose us anyway he still made the conscious decision to step into a life of sin to step into a life of nonsense and mistakes and love it anyway to love it anyway first peter 2 tells us this that he himself meaning jesus bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness by his wounds you have been healed all the scarring all the wounds of those choices that you've made all the cuts and bruises all those things that you're ashamed of and you try to bandage up and hide from the rest of the world can i tell you that scripture tells us jesus bore those wounds on his own body so that you didn't have to god made a sacrifice on the cross for your sins and your mistakes so you no longer have to bear the responsibility of those sins you no longer have to live a life of emptiness you don't have to live a life in the shadow of your sin and your mistakes you don't have to feel empty you don't have to feel in despair you don't have to live without hope jesus has made a new way for you to take on the cross he made a new way for you to have a new life you can live again hear me this morning you can live again you can have purpose again you can have freedom again you can be rescued and redeemed again some of you aren't getting it just yet you can have newness of life again some of us have been walking around far too long in our sin far too long in our mistakes wondering how long we'd have to go through this can i tell you you don't have to go through it anymore you don't have to walk in sin anymore because he bore our sins on the cross already he hung up for our mistakes he hung up for our sin and now we can be free now we can be free if only we will accept it you can live again apc you can live again person who's wondering if i'm talking to you you can live again the apostle paul was so convinced of this reality that he says in second corinthians 5 christ's love compels us everything that paul did all the crazy stuff you read about in our new testament the beatings the whippings the shipwrecks the the tribulation all the persecution do you know what it was that kept him going christ's love it compels us because we are convinced because we are convinced we are sure that this is true we are sure that this is the reality that one died meaning jesus for all and therefore all to their old lives died and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves and their mistakes and in their nonsense and in their trial but for him who died for them and was raised again you don't have to walk the same way you used to you're not confined to the sins you've committed you're not confined to your past and we can be honest and say some sins carry some weight over time some sins some decisions some mistakes they they follow us through our life don't they there's some repercussions that we have to deal with but i just believe god enough to say that god can heal anything that would follow us through our life whether it be physical whether whether it be emotional whether it be that spiritual sin he's got to dig out i just happen to believe in the forgiving love of god enough to say that that if you've walked in today and you need a reason to worship you need a reason to believe that you can live a new life just experience the love of god just taste the love of god again just taste the newness of life that you can have because of god again i promise you you'll sign up with paul and say oh i am compelled i'm convinced by the love of god this is why paul in that ephesians 3 passage he says my prayer is that you would know the love of god you've got to know the love of god if you can get the love of god this morning you can get anything if you can get a hold of the love of god this morning you can be brought to fullness if you could experience the love of god this morning worship comes easy if you can get it if you can get the love of god this morning you'll want to turn your life back over to god to the god who forgave you the god who cleaned you up the god who washed away all the stains and the shame that is in your life who removed the emptiness that is on the inside and replaced it with fullness if you could just get a hold of how much god loves you today a life of worship comes easy a life lived for him comes easy it's no longer about what i have to do it's no longer about what is appropriate in a church service it's that i love god so much it's that he's redeemed me and freed me from some things that you don't know about and so i'm gonna worship i'm gonna praise i'm gonna exalt and lift god up this morning because i'm living a new life because of his love god chose to rescue me from myself he rescued me from my my loneliness he rescued me from my anger and my scars and so today i stand with paul up here this morning and say i am so compelled and so convinced by the love of god my whole existence now revolves around receiving and reciprocating this love i want my life to be about nothing else but to worship my god you know some people you begin to worship in a church service or you begin to make choices in your life and and people look at that and it doesn't really make sense to them and they begin to ask from my view stupid questions why do you worship like that why are you jumping up and down while you waving your arms why do you choose holiness out in the world rather than compromise and convenience why do you make those hard decisions why do you choose to live that way that seems so burdensome that seems so difficult that that seems hard to do well well i don't really understand why we have to do that i i don't get that well they do this and they do that and and so i feel like you could do it too and they try to convince themselves and convince you of stuff they're wasting their breath if you're talking to me you want to know why i won't say this i'll be real diplomatic to your face i'll be real kind to your face but on the inside you know what i'm thinking i don't care what you think you didn't save me you didn't rescue me you didn't give me new life you didn't give me peace you didn't give me joy you didn't give me a new lease whenever i was depressed and and feeling like the world was against me you didn't do anything to me jesus did and so you know who i'm worried about seeing me you know who i'm worried about noticing what i'm doing in a church service noticing what i'm doing in my life i'm worried about the one and only god who rescued me with his love i'm worried about him i'm worried about jesus i don't care what you think i don't care what the world thinks i'm here to worship jesus i'm here to praise the god who showered me in his love thank you jesus we worship you today we worship you we pray thank you lord thank you jesus thank you jesus ah here to worship yeah when you've experienced the love of god abc when you've walked in the love of god other people's opinions just don't matter there might be some people listening to me right now and like well that's not a very dignified speaker he's out of breath and he's sweating and he's jumping around and he's not he doesn't seem real intellectual i'm not very convinced by his demeanor respectfully i don't care respectfully neither should you respectfully neither should you yeah you should be so enveloped and the love of god you should be so baptized in his love he should be living in such joy and peace i'm not saying everything's okay i understand what i mean that even in the nonsense of life you're feeling the joy and love and the presence of god you ought to be living a life you don't care who's watching out here you care about one you want to know i'm getting ahead of myself a little bit i'm almost done don't worry you want to know why i worship because i'm walking in the love of god i don't have to prove myself anymore i don't have to convince anybody of my value anymore i don't have to trick anybody into thinking i'm something that i'm not anymore because i've already got enough love from him i don't need it from you i appreciate it and i want to love you in return but i don't need the love from you i've got enough i i'm filled to fullness because of the love of god i'm walking in fullness because his love is in my life and i believe i'm in a room who have experienced people who have experienced the love of god and they're feeling fullness even in trial even in difficulty they sense that love of god i i know who i'm preaching to this morning but just in case there are some that need the love of god this morning

i want to share a story with you christy you can go ahead and get ready come on up there there was a moment in my life it was as i was entering college and some of you don't know this i was going to erson college you know it was gateway whenever it was my freshman year but you know that meant i was going to be a minister that meant i had it all together that meant i was filled up to here with the holy ghost and i didn't have any problems and life was good at least that's what you might think based on what you saw on the outside that might have been what you suspected some of you have no idea about this season in my life i've told some of you i may have i may have preached this story before so maybe just bear with me but everything was not okay in that season i had made some mistakes coming out of high school i had made some choices i i had chose my own path said no to god not until i didn't wake up and say god no i just woke up and i began to make choices little choices each and every day that's all it is i began to make little choices each and every day that led me away from him that led me away and wouldn't you know it i ended up in a state for about for about a year i ended up in a state of depression and i'll just i'll be transparent not that i haven't been up until this point but i'll be more transparent about this story i remember as cliche as it is i remember laying in my bed laying on the couch whenever i decided to sleep that night and i would cry i would cry until i was so tired i would fall asleep i felt hopeless i felt broken because of my mistakes i began to have questions god do you still love me do you still want me used to have a plan i'm about to go to gateway i'm about to go to ursula can i even go there anymore have i been disqualified has your love forsaken me i began to experience that and as i reflect now i i ask the question what got me through because i did get through i'm here today i did get through i began to reflect and what i came up with is that i had a deep sense of god's imminent involvement and concern for my life even then in other words i i felt the very real love of god through it all that doesn't mean i always accepted it it doesn't mean i always believed it doesn't mean i always acted on it but i did feel the persistent and intense love of god reaching for me something or really someone kept calling my name kept assuring me that my life mattered that he kept showing showing up even in my darkest moments someone kept filling my life to fullness even when i was empty looking back on those moments in my life and even recent moments where i needed the strength and love of god i think i realized maybe a little bit better what paul was getting at all those years ago when he spoke about the love of god bringing someone into fullness and what he's talking about in the passage is becoming more like god as his love calls us to himself and but one translator says that last line like this he says by the by experiencing his love you can be completely filled i like that translation by experiencing his love you can be completely filled in other words the door to knowing and experiencing the fullness of god in your life is knowing his love for you and it is from there that everything else flows abc we have got to get this first and foremost the deep and intense love of god as i sat there broken and empty i was unable to invent or create a sense of purpose a sense of self love in my life it was it was in that moment that god stepped in with his love i didn't deserve it at that moment in my life i had chose another path i chose to say no to god i had walked away from him and and my way left me empty and hopeless and wondering if i would ever feel love or purpose again but it was there somebody please hear me today it was there that god showed me the and the length and the height and the depth of his love it was there that god breathed life back into my heart and showed me what it was to truly live what it was to live that newness of life it was there that god removed the weights of my past and my former decisions and placed his undeserved love on my shoulders and it was from this place of undeserved love that worship rose from my heart that still echoes in my life today it's a worship and a praise of thankfulness it's a praise from a rescued life and a redeemed heart it was there that i gained the why for my worship it was there in the love of god that i gained my reason for living a life that pleased the lord it was the transforming and all-embracing love of my creator that did not turn away from me when i was broken and hopeless it was his love that gave me a song it it was his love that continues to sustain me even today abc it was his love and i now want to join the psalmist when he says in psalm 89 i will sing of the lord's great love forever with my mouth i will make your faithfulness known through all generations i will declare i i will make plain that your love stands firm forever that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself i know that not everybody's story is the same in this room but i bet if i asked most of you you could think of a moment in your life in which you found yourself at your lowest point but you still felt the love of god and whenever you go through hard times and you feel like you don't have a reason to worship you think back on that moment just like i think back on that moment in my life i know that i'm in a room full of these stories full of the experiences of the love of god to those of us that have experience it's not just a story it's not just someone telling you about it it's not just somebody preaching about the love of god it's something you can have a real relationship with you can have a real experience with the love of god can break into your life today right now in this moment and it will be realer to you than anything has ever been real before it will be real to you you don't have to be content with anyone else's story you can have your own

if you want mine if i could ask just everybody stand with me i i believe that god god wants to pour out his love he wants this whole room to experience the love of god anew afresh he wants it to be like the rain that washes all the impurities out of the air that washes the dirt off the road that gives everybody a free car wash god wants his love this morning to be like the rain he wants it to begin to wash some things out of some lives wash some things out of some hearts out of some mind some wrong thinking some shame whatever it is i i just i have to tell you this morning you don't have to settle for a life devoid of his love you don't have to settle for that you can have beauty instead of ashes you can have fullness instead of emptiness god loves you god wants you god has chosen you and is choosing you and god is calling you no we don't deserve it no we haven't added up to anything no we we don't deserve the love of god in our life but he wants to give it anyway and whatever else whatever else is in your life right now that leaves you feeling without or empty right now it can be replaced this morning with the love of god with the fullness of god so here's what i want to do here's what i want to do i believe in what is called an altar call some of us are familiar with that term some of us maybe not we've got a lot of new faces here we've got a lot of new faith some may not know what an altar call is i don't know maybe i don't know what an altar call is maybe i'm making it up you know but i'm going to call it an altar call and here's what an altar call is it's as you hear the voice of god through a sermon through a song through prayer as you hear the voice of god calling you in your life the church creates a space creates a moment you can come up to the front you can kneel on these altars you can step out into an aisle you can kneel at your pew you can pray in your pew but you can find a space as we create a moment for god to speak clearly and specifically and definitely into each individual life today so we're going to have them sing we're going to have them played but here's what i believe is going to happen if you will just open up this morning please hear me and believe this please believe it this morning if you will just open up this morning say god i need your love i need your love you'll begin to pour out into your life and you will go from emptiness to fullness you will go from hardship to peace you will go from lacking love to being filled with love right now these altars are open we've got people already here praying you can come to the front you can step to an eye but please i encourage you step out do something respond to the love of god right now i believe he's calling he's calling right now he wants you to know it he wants you to experience it he wants you to experience it he has poured out jesus