The United States Marines apparently have a code which they learn and live by: ‘Unit, Corps, God, Country’. I was always a little bothered by that. It sounded, at least to my ear, that God came third on the list of priorities for the Marine Corp. They would attend firstly to their unit, then to the Marine Corps, and then to God. Perhaps that’s not what is meant, but I always felt it was as if God came in third.
The fact is, whether or not we realise it, God is to be at the top of everyone’s list of priorities. However you would list what your life is about – God should be first. That’s because you were created for God.
Worshipping God is to be the ultimate priority of our lives. We’ll see from Scripture why – because we were created to worship, we were saved to worship, and we will spend all eternity worshipping.
We begin a series on worship that will take us through many twists and turns. We’ll look at the Priority of Worship, the Basis of Worship, The Difference between Worship and Entertainment, True Worship vs. False, The Secret of Worship and the Forms of Worship. We want to begin by looking at the Priority of Worship. We’ll see three biblical proofs for the priority of worship in our lives.
I. You Were Created to Worship God.
Isaiah 43:7 Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him.
Isaiah 43:21 This people I have formed for Myself; They shall declare My praise.
Why did God create the universe? He created it to reflect His glory.
Psalm 19:1-2 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge.
All creation is supposed to show forth the glory of God.
Psalm 148 is an example. There we learn that every realm of creation must praise the Lord. If God made it – it must praise Him.
He created all things to worship Him. Wasn’t that selfish? No – God created because He was so beautiful and overflowing – His love desired to share that with myriads of other living creatures and beings.
Revelation 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
The purpose, the function, of the universe is to worship God.
Perhaps you have been to a trade show and seen a new device which you do not recognise. What is the first thing you ask? ‘What does it do?’ Simply put, the way you understand something is when you understand its purpose, why it was made, what it is functioned for.
Hypothetically, if an angel were to see man for the first time, and ask another angel, ‘What does it do?’ the answer would be, ‘It worships. It was made to reflect God’s glory back to Him.’
Man with his rational powers of reason, with the ability to adore, and desire, and love, and treasure, of all creatures, is supposed to be the supreme worshipper. God said the following at the very birth of man: ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth’ (Genesis 1:26). Man was meant to be a unique mirror of the glory of God.
Every culture on earth worships. It’s built into man, its instinctive – man seeks to worship something.
If you can’t or don’t worship God, you’re violating your design instructions – and you won’t be happy.
To illustrate – have you tried to use a tool that doesn’t work or fit, i.e. a brick for a hammer, or pliers for a screwdriver? It doesn’t work well, and probably breaks. That’s because you are not using it for what it was made to do. It might work, but it won’t work well.
The same is true of a person placed in a job which doesn’t suit them – an outdoors type doing a desk job, a shy person being placed into sales, a logical person in a creative environment. The result is frustration, unhappiness, inefficiency – they are doing things which they were not made to do.
What happens when humans, made to worship God, do not do that? They end up frustrated, angry, aimless, self-destructive and ultimately in despair.
The premise of Solomon in Ecclesiastes is this: Life without worshipping God doesn’t work and isn’t supposed to work. A life is filled with physical pleasure, entertainment, fine living, great music, many women, huge amounts of wealth, great power, great fame and reputation, and even more sublime things such as wisdom, righteousness. But everyone dies. It ends, and oppression continues. Fools take the place of the wise. Lazy people inherit the work of the diligent. Righteous people die like wicked people. Wisdom is often ignored, or unrewarded.
At the end of the day – everything looks like one big cycle – nothing’s really getting better. Empty! Weightless! Pointless! Vanity! Despair – without God. He comes to the conclusion – ‘Fear God’ – another way of saying worship God. Worship makes life make sense.
Some may feel that they would like to refuse to worship a God who demands their worship. However, if that’s what you were designed to do, and if it what will make you happiest, then of course, a loving God is going to demand that you do what He made you to do.
Many of us have asked that famous question: ‘Why am I here?’ The answer is: To worship. When you wake up – worship. When you work – worship. Worship when you are at school. Worship at home, while driving, with family, at church. When you relax – worship.
1 Corinthians 10:31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
God made you to be a worshipper – and if you seek your meaning, purpose or satisfaction elsewhere – you will end up in despair.
Worship is not something you switch on for a Sunday morning, and switch off when you go home; it is your whole life, because you were created to worship.
Isn’t our fundamental problem that we reject this thought – that we were created to worship God? We still believe the lie, ‘Ye shall be as gods…’
Man is the only creature outside of the fallen angels that is unwilling to worship.
Luke 19:37-40 Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’
And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’
But He answered and said to them, ‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.’
Jesus said that if they were unwilling to worship Him, the stones would be willing.
2. You Were Saved to Worship God
Isaiah 43:25; 1 Peter 2:9; Ephesians 1:4-7
If we were made to worship – why aren’t all men worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ? What is stopping man from worshipping God? The answer is, because man’s heart is dead in trespasses and sins. Man cannot worship Christ, because He is depraved. He can offer worship in any one of many different directions – but He cannot worship Christ.
However, the saving transaction is that God gives a new heart, cleanses of conscience-defiling sins, gives an inclination to want to worship, sends the Spirit within to illuminate and sanctify. God saves you to restore you to being a mirror. He saves you to worship Him.
Some preach a weak, or incomplete, Gospel such as:
- Jesus the Fireman – He rescues you from the fires of hell, and you go on living your life.
- Jesus the Motivational Speaker – He saves you to fill your life with meaning, enjoyment and rewarding experiences.
- Jesus the Moral Crusader – Jesus saves you to become a more ethical person, more upright, honest, and considerate.
- Jesus the Foreman – He saves you because He is desperately short on labourers – people to do His work, which comes to a grinding halt if He doesn’t get them.
In contrast, the Bible shows Christ as Jesus the Redeemer. Jesus buys us. He buys us with what price? He pays the price of His own life. For whom does He buy us? He buys us for Himself.
Isaiah 43:1 But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.
We are His own special people.
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light;
He saves you to worship. He restores you to be able and willing to worship Him.
The Gospel is that God wants to make worshippers out of rebels. We are saved to worship.
The whole theme of the Bible is that man is created to worship. Man has lost the privilege given in Genesis; Jesus came to restore it, and redeemed mankind doing that again in Revelation.
Think of the letter to Church at Ephesus, in Revelation 2. They were commended for their labour, their patience, their separation from sin, their doctrinal discernment, their ‘bearing up’, their perseverance – but they had left their first love. We don’t score 90% if we have all these things but worship is missing. You can have all the human organs in a body in perfect shape – but take out the heart, and the body dies.
As a Christian, if you don’t worship, you are missing the point of your salvation, and are falling below the minimum standard of a believer. Your Christian life will be an empty string of activities without a beating heart – the heart of worship. If what you do is not done so as to worship Him, your activities become meaningless, (1 Corinthians 13). They even become harmful, (Isaiah 1).
Every part of your Christian life – reading the Word, praying, fellowshipping, witnessing, giving, serving, growing – comes back to this one thing – worship.
3. You Will Spend Eternity Worshipping God
John 17:24; Revelation 4:8
Jesus’ desire is for His disciples to eventually be before Him beholding His glory. This is what will make heaven the pleasure it will be – worshipping God forever.
Don’t you think it is important to get used to and learn better how to do what you will do forever?
Some may say, ‘Objection! Heaven is where we will worship – down here we get on with God’s work.’
The answer to that is: The best worker is a worshipper. The most effective labourer is one who loves.
Heaven will be the perfection of what we can only do in part here.
Just as there are false ideas about the Gospel – there are false ideas about heaven:
- Heaven is the ultimate retirement scheme.
- Heaven is the ultimate holiday venue.
- Heaven is the privileges and pleasures you never had on earth.
But, every time we get a glimpse of heaven in the book of Revelation – do you know what is going on? Worship is going on!
A missionary once told me we won’t be just boringly, ‘Praise You! Praise You!’ Now, I know that this would not be dull at all.
The best experiences of my life have been the most ecstatic times of worship – to be lost in wonder, adoration, astonishment, amazement. To do this for all eternity, and to have the perfected mind and body which could handle it, would be pure pleasure.
The Seraphim never stop doing it, and they do it willingly – Revelation 4:8.
In the Doxologies we say, no less than 13 times, ‘To Him be glory forever and ever’.
Heaven is primarily worship – worship, unobstructed by sin, unobstructed by selfishness, by suffering, by doubt, by unbelief, by a blinded heart.
I sometimes speculate if the rewards of heaven are figurative for a more blessed experience of Christ for all eternity. No one will be sad in heaven, that’s for sure – but I suggest that those who worshipped Him the most while here, may well have the greatest experience of worship there.
George Whitefield, when asked about if he would see Wesley in heaven, replied “I believe that Mr. John Wesley will have a place so near the throne of God, and that such poor creatures as you and I will be so far off, as to be hardly able to see him.”
This life is preparing for what we will do forever.
Think on this – if you can’t worship, you’re not ready for heaven. If the idea of worshipping God has no relish, no inviting savour, no enjoyment to you, then you’re not ready for heaven.
If you’re not ready for heaven – then you need to be, because that is the only way you would want to spend eternity.
How cruel it would be to take people who do not want to worship to heaven and require that of them for an eternity! If you have no desire to worship then you need to examine two possibilities:
- You need to be saved. You need to abandon being simply ethical, or religious. Jesus says, ‘Ye must be born again.’ Reformation won’t do. You must come and receive Him as Lord and Saviour so as to be rightly related to Him. If Jesus saves you to worship – then a true saving transaction will plant that seed in your heart.
- You need to be change your priorities as a believer. You’re a believer, but you’re in love with this world, with this present age. Your desires are for yourself, you have quenched the Spirit, hardened your heart. God will discipline you, train you and change you to fit you for heaven. You need to realign your Christian life to this centre point – worshipping God.
So the point I want to get across in this message is that your priority is to worship God.
Our supreme duty is what we owe God. We often hear people say, ‘I owe it to myself to do this-and-that’. No, actually my number one duty is what I owe God. And what I owe God is worship. You were created for it. You were saved for it. And you will spend all eternity doing it.
So this message will have succeeded if, after you have heard it, you say, ‘God, here I am to worship you’; If, when you wake up tomorrow, you say, ‘Lord, I am here to worship You’. As you go to work, to school, or work at home, you say, ‘Lord, here I am to worship you.’ As you pray and open the Word, and encourage other believers, it keeps coming back, it’s all about worship.
Do you know what a Christian should never say? ‘I’m bored’. Boredom reflects inner emptiness. And, since you were made to worship, you can always, and should be always coming to adore, honour and know Him all the more.