Disciples of Christ are called to worship God. But how do we do that all the way down to our souls? This daily devotional finishes looking at how Clarkson’s list of choosing to put God first in every way increases our worship of God.
Nuggets
- Hope helps grow disciples of Christ in faith.
- We show God that we desire a relationship with Him when we seek Him.
- Worship is about showing our delight in the Lord by rejoicing in joy.
- We worship that about which we are enthusiastic.
- Our worship should be based on God’s character.
- We are to serve — and worship — only God.
Devotions in the Soul Worship series
We started in the last devotion looking at Clarkson’s list of how we worship God in our souls. We only got halfway through.
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Worship is an important duty on a disciple’s job description. Let’s finish up what we can learn from this sermon to help us up our worship.
Let's Put It into Context
- We can esteem God — hold Him in high value — because of the value He has placed on us.
- To worship God, we need to shift our focus from the world to Him.
- Worshiping God is a choice, of which we must be intentional.
- We must choose to totally submit to Him and worship Him in spirit and truth.
- We follow God’s law when we love God and others.
- We worship God because we trust Him with all our hearts.
- Since we worship the Creator of the universe, we can be confident in God.
How Do We Hope in God?
“Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming” (I Pet. 1: 13 NIV).
Hope helps grow disciples of Christ in faith. The product is a life lived in worship.
We just got done with a series of hope. The definition we used was more of a general one. Hope is the expectation, also called a living hope, based on the confidence that, because of our relationship with God, our names will be found in the book of life.
Let’s see what we learned from our series.
- Disciples have a living hope that is our inheritance because their names will be found in the book of life.
- As our faith grows, hope grows in tandem.
- God has promised certain things. We can be confident that He will do what He says.
- A major element of hope is waiting. It is about earnestly expecting what has been promised will come to be exactly as promised regardless how long it takes.
Hope is a future expectation, called a living hope, based on the confidence that our names will be found in the book of life. Disciples of Christ wait for Jesus’ return and the awarding of our inheritance.
This living hope fuels our worship. Our thanksgiving bubbles out of us as praise.
How Do We Desire God?
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart (Jer. 29: 13 ESV)
We show God that we desire a relationship with Him when we seek Him. As we grow in that relationship, we grow in our worship of God.
We seek God by hearing His Word, reading it, studying it, meditating on it, and memorizing it. All through that, we need to be in prayer, asking God to provide the meaning.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
God wants to provide the meaning for us. He wants us to understand what we need to understand in order to submit to Him. “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God — who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly —and it will be given to him” (Jas. 1: 5 CSB).
No, we are not going to understand everything. That is where faith comes into the picture. Faith is the belief that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
When we give up on our insistence that we have to understand everything, we can appreciate the power of God. As we learn more of His character, we can see Who we are worshiping.
We have to seek God with all of our hearts. We have to worship God with all of our hearts.
How Do We Delight in Worshiping God?
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil. 4: 4 ESV)
When we are pleased with someone, we delight in them. Rejoicing is showing that delight. What we show is joy. That is what worship is about — showing our delight in the Lord by rejoicing in joy.
Delight. Rejoice. Joy.
What is joy? The Weekly Pulpit wrote that “joy is soul elation, or the feeling of extreme pleasure.”
We should have joy because of our conversion. When we give our lives to Jesus, we gain a family, which should bring us joy. That bubbles out of us to serve others.
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Where is this joy found? In the Lord. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control …” (Gal. 5: 22-23 CSB).
Because we have this joy, disciples should use it to worship the One who gives it to us.
How Zealous Are We in Worshiping God?
“For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10: 2 ESV)
We worship that about which we are enthusiastic. We need to make sure we are zealous for God.
We don’t want to be like the Roman church. It was zealous, but they were not living as God wanted them to live (Barr). We want to be living on God’s Truth.
Our worship cannot be like the Jews. They didn’t have zeal. It isn’t about religion and ceremony.
It is about strengthening our relationships with God. We need to change our characters to be like Him.
But we aren’t supposed to keep our worship to ourselves. We are to witness to the lost. Barr wrote, “The object of zeal is to make converts, not proselytes; to bring accessions to the Church from the world, not to transfer the members of one religious denomination to another.”
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This is important because our zeal should be based on our love of God and love of man. Those are the two greatest commandments.
Glossary
How Grateful Are We Really to God?
“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love endures forever” (I Chron. 16: 34 CSB)
Our worship should be based on God’s character. Because He is good, we should be forever grateful to God. That impacts our worship.
If we take out what He’s done for us, we are left with God’s character. That is enough to demand our worship of Him.
We’ve already talked about God’s love. He also possesses an infinite mercy. God’s mercy is an act of sovereign will that produces an unexpected and undeserved response from God as He responds in love to our needs.
We are to give thanks for God’s mercy and love through worship.
How Dedicated Are We in Worshiping God?
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Mt. 6: 24 ESV)
God calls us to be dedicated to Him. We are to serve — and worship — only Him.
Cooper told us what it means to serve two masters. He wrote, “The man who serves his master serves him with faithfulness and singleness of heart, with a mind wholly given to his service.”
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The master we serve will be the master we worship. We need to worship the Master.
Making the Connections
If we don’t worship God, we worship an idol. An idol is an object of worship in any form that takes from God the worship that is His due.
If we are worshiping an idol, we are not fulfilling the covenant of grace. That means we risk being the fake disciple.
We have to make sure our worship, like our life, is pure. That means we want to have God cut out the sin in our lives.
We need to be pure and joyful.
How Do We Apply This?
- We must continually be asking God to forgive us of our sins.
- We have to study His Word to see how He wants us to worship Him.
- We must be obedient to His laws and commandments.
- We need to grow our faith.
- We need to serve Him in humility.
- We need to keep in constant contact with Him through prayer.
Gracious Heavenly Father. You are omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Yet, You desire relationships with us. Through these relationships, we are to worship You. Father, we praise Your name. We will lift our voices to sing Your praises and live our live to reflect Your character. Amen.
What do you think?
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