You're listening to audio from Ascend Church. For more information about Ascend or to access more gospel-centered tools to grow as a disciple of Christ, visit ascendkc.org. Well, for those of you who don't know me, I'm normally on stage with a guitar in my hand, and so if I do anything weird with my hands, you'll know why. But I want to tell you this, I am passionate about worship. And there's many times where I'm preparing for a worship set on Sunday mornings, and I'm thinking to myself, man, I wish I had the opportunity to maybe just expand this thought a little bit more to the church. First, because of what it has done for me, what God has been doing in my own heart and in my own life, but also because I have a heart to see our church grow in its capacity to worship the Lord. And so, this is my chance. So, ready? Buckle up, two hours, here we go. No, but the title of today's message is The Imperative of Worship. And what you come to realize very quickly when you think about the topic of worship is that there are so many different directions that you could go. when you approach it. I mean, just do a quick search on YouTube and sermons on worship and you'll find so many different directions. You know, you'll find different definitions that have been used, different perspectives given, and preferences, of course, held to when it comes to worship. But for our purposes today, for the majority of the time, I would love to be able to think on and talk about this idea of corporate worship, the corporate worship gathering on Sunday mornings. both the privilege and responsibility that we have not to disconnect, to just wait until we get to the good stuff, the preaching, although it is good stuff, but to deeply and intentionally engage with this topic of corporate worship. So that leads me to the place of wanting to share the big idea with you this morning. It's gonna be a definition that I hope will help give us just kind of a broad sense and direction for where we're going to go this morning. So the big idea is this. Worship is a life. fully devoted to Christ in head, heart, and hand. Again, worship is a life fully devoted to Christ in head, heart, and hand. You know, we really do need God this morning. his spirit to speak to us, to illuminate his word to us. So let me just take a moment this morning and pray before we continue. God, we pray that you would do just that. We pray that your spirit would illuminate your word to us, that you would give us hearts of humility, teachability, and discernment as we look at this topic of worship and how to grow in our understanding of who you are and then how to apply it in our lives. For these things in Jesus' name, amen. You know, Pastor Jeff snuck into first service and so I was like kind of saying a couple things about him. I didn't realize he was here. And so, but what he does love to do on Sunday mornings from time to time is throw baseball analogies into his sermons, pun intended. And so what I feel like I should probably do on the very front end of the sermon is do a running illustration. How many of you love running just for the sake of running? So this illustration is gonna go probably really badly. But the thing is, Paul uses it in the New Testament, so it's gotta be better than baseball analogies, right? I'm still working that one out. But let me say this, I heard a running coach once say that when you tow the line at a race, that you're not only racing out of the bucket of miles that you've trained for specifically for that race, you're actually running out of the bucket of miles that you've accumulated during your entire life as a runner. In other words, foot that's pounded the pavement, all the pain that you've experienced from running, and it is painful, and all the sweat has contributed to that moment when you toe the line at that race, both physically and mentally, it prepares you for that moment. And I want to submit to you and suggest to you that just like our physical body adapts to training, so does our spiritual body as we are sanctified as believers. The reality is once you've submitted to the Lord and His sanctifying process begins in your life, it is meant to be a cumulative process of growth in and towards Christ. So when you come up to any circumstance, you're actually engaging with that circumstance out of the bucket of sanctification or spiritual growth and training in your life. Your sanctification doesn't happen in a vacuum, and you don't grow on accident. Enter the local church, God's plan, plan A, and his gift to the body of Christ. So let's just for a moment put that in the context of corporate worship on Sunday mornings. When you walk into a church, when you walked into church today or when you normally walk into church on Sunday mornings, let me submit this to you. The full breadth of God's sanctification in your life can and should be employed by the way you engage with and respond to God and his people. No matter how long you've been a Christian, So off the back of that statement and the running illustration, you might be thinking to yourself, well, yeah, that all sounds well and good, and I actually agree with that, but what am I actually supposed to do with that? Where do we actually go from here? Well, I'm glad you asked. And that's where I wanna head into three different aspects of worship this morning based off the big idea in your notes. Head, heart, and hand. So point number one, worship with your head. So here it is right from the get-go. You cannot separate your mind and your head from worship. You want to love and worship the Lord with your mind, Matthew 22, 37. And while I think that's actually a fairly easy concept for us to embrace and understand, I want us to dig a little this morning to see where we may need to grow in both our actual understanding of what that means, but also our application in our own lives as we live out the reality of worshiping Christ. I was at a conference a couple years ago in Nashville called Sing, and John MacArthur was speaking at the conference, and he said this when he was preaching. He said, you will only be able to go as high in worship as you go deep in the knowledge of God. Now with that quote, here's what he was not saying. He wasn't saying that if you don't have an extremely robust, deep, and theological understanding of God, you can't worship. But what he was saying is that there's a direct correlation from how much you know about God to your worship and intimacy or your relationship with him expressed in that worship. Have you ever thought about worship in that way in your relationship to Christ? I mean, that sounds like a pretty obvious statement when we think about our spouses if we're married. for my relationship to grow, I need to continue to grow myself in my knowledge of who my wife is to learn her and to understand her. But don't we often neglect, don't we often neglect it in our considerations of Christ and our relationship with him? Listen, the foundation of worship can't float around in some ambiguous positive feelings towards Jesus and spiritual matters. If we live in that space, we will always gravitate towards a self-constructed view of Jesus that fits our own life context and not the actual person of Jesus revealed in scripture, difficult theology and all. Worship cannot be dictated by preference or experience. We must let our knowledge of God lead the way. And a couple verses just to meditate on as we consider this reality this morning. John 17 verse three, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. And this verse, next verse, Romans 11, 33, speaks of God's knowledge, his character. Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. I love what J.I. Packer says in his book, Knowing God. He says this, what makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective. something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance. And this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God? So let's pursue this goal this morning of knowing God as we dive into scripture. Let's turn over to Psalm chapter 33 for a minute. If you don't have a Bible, it's on page 463 and the Bible's in front of you. No author is ascribed to this Psalm at the beginning of the chapter, but it is definitely probable and most commentators and scholars agree that it was David. And David has an amazing way of weaving so many different aspects of So many different aspects of things throughout the Psalms, whether it's praise, theology, or lament. And here we see him immediately moving towards praising God. Look at verses one through three. And remember the title of the message, the imperative of worship. Just in these first three verses, you see, shout for joy. give thanks, make melody, sing to him, play skillfully. These are imperative verbs in the original language and something the author is actually calling his audience to do. That play skillfully was just, I think, maybe reserved for the worship team for the closing song this morning. But these aren't suggestions, these are imperatives. But have you ever been in a situation where somebody tells you to do something and they don't give you a context or a reason why you should do it? I don't like that. And that's why I love how the psalmist continues. Look at verse four. Starts with the word for. Well, for what? Why should we do these things? Starting in verse four, For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice, and the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap, and he puts the deeps in storehouses. So just for a moment, let's pull out some characteristics of God in just these three verses to help fuel our imperative of worship. The word of the Lord is upright. He is trustworthy. He does not lie. Everything is done out of his faithfulness. He never fails. He loves righteousness and justice. That's his character. His love is steadfast, immovable. His word has the power to make things, heaven and earth. What a beautiful glimpse into the majesty and power and character of God in just those few verses. So what should that produce in us? What should our response be? Well, the psalmist continues, and I love verse eight. Here's what it says. Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. Worship, our response, is and should always be worship. We must let our continued study and pursuit of God translate into a bigger view of him and his character, which should result in an awe of him and a worship only due to God. So often David writes, of his circumstances in light of God's character, all encased in praise. I mean, look, just take some time at some point, go through the Psalms, and you'll see so many of David's Psalms, they start with praise, they lead into his circumstances, they go into God's character, and then they end with praise. I thought to myself, as I looked at that, what a great blueprint for how we should engage with worship in our own lives. Is that your blueprint? In fact, some manuscripts actually have Psalm 32 and 33 combined. And just take a look back at Psalm 32 just a few pages back in verses three through five. Look at these words, starting in verse three. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up, as by the heat of summer I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Look at those circumstances, those feelings, and those emotions he is sharing. But again, look how he ends the Psalm. Just drop down to verses 10 and 11. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy all you upright in heart. He ends again with worship. So let me say it this way. In order to build a healthy, growing house of worship in your heart, you need a proper foundation. God's word and his character are the best soil for the garden of your worship to flourish. God's word and his character are the best soil for the garden of your worship to flourish. Not how you feel, Not your heritage or preferences, but God's word and his character. Are you worshiping with your head? How much do you value knowing God and his word? And then how does that inform and impact your worship of him? Good questions to ponder. That leads us to point number two, worship with your heart. You know, in the Old Testament we see very clearly the sin of worshiping idols, physical idols, and while in our culture it doesn't necessarily present itself in the same way, although some would argue money might be a good example, idols are really anything that takes a seat at the head of the table of your heart in place of Christ and our relationship with him. Let me say that again. Idols are really anything that takes a seat at the head of the table of our hearts in place of Christ and our relationship with him. That is to say that even the pursuit of knowledge and the blessing of incredible intellect, if not accompanied by a heart that yearns to have a relationship with Christ and cultivate a deeper love for Him, can and probably will descend into a pride-filled, self-centered idolatry of one's own ability to accumulate knowledge. Is that you this morning? The Bible clearly says in 1 Corinthians chapter eight, verse one, that knowledge on its own puffs up. And we see that most clearly on display probably in the New Testament with the Pharisees. And there's a moment where they're coming after Jesus concerning commandments and traditions in Matthew chapter 15, and Jesus says to them, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in that moment, Jesus is actually referencing back to Isaiah chapter 29, where God is using the prophet Isaiah to both tell of the coming destruction of Israel's enemies, but also to judge the improper worship of the Israelites towards the Lord. And one commentator says this about Isaiah 29. The prophet speaks ironically, go on year after year and kill the sacrifices at the appointed time, whereby you think to appease me, but all shall be in vain. For know that God will punish you for your hypocritical worship consisting of mere form destitute of true piety. Here's my point. We were not created for a duty-driven, robotic, intellectual worship that merely presents itself in how much we know about God or even how much we do for God. We were created to worship God with our whole self as a beautiful and authentic response to the garden of knowledge cultivated in the soil of our hearts. Let me say that one more time. We were created to worship God with our whole self as a beautiful and authentic response to the garden of knowledge cultivated in the soil of our hearts. I love what Psalm 86 verse 12 says. I give thanks to you, O Lord, my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. In fact, that's only one of 143 times that the heart is referenced throughout the Psalms. David and other Psalm writers must have understood what God wants us to understand through his divinely inspired word that the heart matters. Bob Coughlin, in his book, Worship Matters, says this. Our greatest problem in worshiping God is not an ineffective leader, song choices, the people around us, or even our circumstances. It is the idolatry of our hearts. When we have a professed God alongside functional gods, idolatry will rule our hearts. So here's the question this morning. What or who is ruling your heart? Again, you can clearly see that David understood that his faith was not merely intellectual, but also a deep and experiential relationship with God springing from the heart. We looked briefly at some verses from Psalm 32 and Psalm 33. So if you just page a few more forward and go to Psalm 34 this morning, surprise, you'll see that he starts again with worship. Imperatives to worship God. And I love this one because he's actually making it a point to make it corporate. He's saying, oh come, magnify the Lord with me. Then as he so often does, as we said before, moves into circumstances alongside God's character, but then pause chapter 34 verse eight and see what that says. It says, oh taste and see that the Lord is good. This is like an intentional pause to linger and to look at the beauty and intricacies of like a Van Gogh painting or something. It's like slowing down and enjoying every bite of that majestic Lou Malnati's pizza, Chicago deep dish. Let me challenge you this morning to think about how you walk into corporate worship on Sunday mornings. Is it to just check off your to-do list? Is it to wait for the sermon? Or is it to slow down and linger to taste and see that the Lord is good? But what I love about scripture, you don't just take a verse out of context and then just roll with it. Look at the rest of the context of Psalm 34. That phrase doesn't exist in a vacuum. Verse four, God answers us and delivers us from all our fears. Verse five, those who look to God are radiant and will not be ashamed. Verse six, God hears and saves us out of all trouble. Verse seven, God delivers those who fear him. This is the God who we worship. This is the God who we are to direct our gaze towards, our hearts towards. You know, when I was in college, being a poor college student, I would oftentimes go over to my brother's apartment, and being a poor college student, I would raid his fridge every time I'd go there. And for those of you who know me, know that I love chocolate milk. So the first thing I'd do, I'd get to his apartment, open up the fridge, and there it was, the glorious chocolate milk. And I would just grab it out of the fridge, open it immediately, and just start chugging right out of the carton. And I'll just tell you this, my brother had a bad habit from time to time, of leaving things in his fridge for a little bit too long. So I will say, on a few occasions, same thing. Opened it, beautiful chocolate milk, grabbed the carton, pull it out, start chugging, and then it was like chunks, you know? So, you know, why do I share that, though? As gross of an illustration as that is. I looked at it, saw that it looked good, tasted it, and it was definitely not good. But here's the reality. The difference being when you taste and see that the Lord is good, his goodness always, always satisfies. He will always come through. His character never changes. He always remains good. I love what Brent shared in that song we sang before the sermon. It reminds me of a verse in Psalm 90, which is a unique psalm. You should go read it sometime. It's attributed to Moses, and he says this, satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. That doesn't sound like a purely intellectual statement. So my question is, is your heart being satisfied by the Lord this morning? And there might be some of you who would say, I don't even know what it looks like to have a heart that is satisfied by the Lord, or I'm not even really sure if I know this Lord that you're talking about. Well, let me encourage you with this this morning. You can know Him, and you can be satisfied by Him. But first, there needs to be a recognition of God's holiness, that he is set apart from us. And that in that recognition, there needs to be an understanding of his expectation of our holiness. And because we not only sin, but we are by nature sinners, we can never be perfectly holy. We must admit that reality. Then we must confess that Jesus Christ is the only solution. His death was the penalty for my sin that I deserved and his resurrection was the exclamation point of his victory over sin and death. Amen? Amen. Then we must confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and finally commit to following him no matter the cost, all the days of our life. Have you done that this morning? I'm praying for you even right now that if you haven't, that today would be your day. Be satisfied by his steadfast love this morning and submit to Christ. So imagine this morning if we started to walk into corporate worship, Sunday morning service, having thought through these things we've been talking about when it pertains to worshiping with your head, worshiping with your heart, before you came in on Sunday mornings to service. What would that look like? What should that look like? What would that elicit in you? Can you imagine if all of us committed to growing and leaning into this reality of worshiping with our head, worshiping with our hearts, and then walk into Sunday morning, and as a corporate body at Ascend Church, come together, encourage one another, and lift up the name of Jesus. Can you imagine what that would look like? Man, it would be just an amazing opportunity to give God glory and to encourage one another at Ascend. And I want that thought to lead us into point number three, and that is worship with your hands. My friend Micah Clutinati, who is one of the preaching pastors at Gospel City Church in Granger, where actually Brent is from, recently in a sermon that he preached said this. Jesus is worthy to be worshiped. All of our study of scriptures and all of our growth in theology and all of our deepening of doctrine, it must lead to the worshiping of Jesus Christ. It must lead to the extolling of Jesus Christ, realizing that he alone is worthy of the power and praise. To worship Jesus is to respond to the revelation of his holiness. You know, God has given us an incredible gift in corporate worship to encourage one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, as it says in Ephesians 519, as well as to lift up and extol the name of Jesus Christ. And I think too often, we have a small and nearsighted view when it comes to participating in corporate worship. Do you realize that the way you engage with corporate worship not only honors the Lord, but also encourages and builds up your brothers and sisters in Christ here at Ascend? You know, there are many times, there have been many times where I'm leading worship on a Sunday morning, and because I'm in relationship with a particular person who's in the congregation, I know that they're struggling with something. And yet, even in that struggle and in their circumstance, I'm seeing them choose to worship the Lord with their whole heart, with their body. And that is a massive encouragement to me, to see them walk through that struggle, but come in on a Sunday morning and choose to worship the Lord in that way. I often say that in our sinful nature, we as human beings like to swing towards extremes, and I think worship is no different at times. We can swing, as we've talked about, to the purely intellectual exercise. Or we can swing the other way towards just an emotional experience. But Jesus, in John 4, 24, clearly tells us that he is seeking worshipers. Did you realize that? He's actually seeking worshipers. Those that would worship in truth, yes, but and in spirit. truth and spirit. He's not interested in formulaic intellectual religion just as much as he's not interested in a worship that is free of any substance and is swayed by your emotional state. But he is looking for worship that is a response to a mind that knows him and a heart that loves him. He's looking for a response from a mind that knows him and a heart that loves him. Remember what I said at the very beginning, though. We need to have our response grounded in God's word over tradition, God's word over preference, God's word over intellect, and God's word over emotion. But if we're honest with ourself here at Ascend, corporate worship responding physically can be a challenge for us. And my heart for us is to grow in this area. And Bob Coughlin, who is the author of that Worship Matters book I referenced earlier, and he's the leader of Sovereign Grace Music, talks about four hindrances that might describe us as Christians when it comes to participating in corporate worship. Now, of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but I think this will help us consider where we sit when it comes to participating in corporate worship. So let me give you them this morning. Hindrance number one, unaware of what the Bible teaches. I'm hoping that one might not be as much of a problem after today, but nonetheless, you might be unaware that the Bible is actually filled with passages of passionate worship of the Lord. I mean, spend just a little time in the Psalms as we've done today, and you'll see that on full display. And then go over to places like Revelation 5 in the New Testament, and you'll see passionate, exuberant worship of the Lord. Practically all throughout Scripture, and specifically in the Psalms, you'll see things like raising hands, clapping, shouting, bowing as beautiful expressions to be able to worship the Lord with. So my encouragement and challenge for you this morning is don't let not knowing be a hindrance to you engaging in this way in corporate worship on Sunday mornings. Hindrance number two, you might be afraid of what other people might think. My encouragement to you in that area is don't let the fear of man, referencing Proverbs 29, 25, you can look that up later, influence your decision to disconnect from physically expressing worship to the Lord. Our response to God should always be to his worthiness, not some image or reputation that we are trying to keep up or trying to protect. Maybe that's you this morning. My challenge is don't let that be a hindrance. Let's decide to grow in this area together so that we are in pursuit of worshiping because of God's worthiness, and that's it. Hindrance number three. This could be a tough one, actually, for a lot of people, and myself as well. Hypocrisy to express honor towards God physically when you don't feel anything. Have you ever experienced that, that feeling? And actually, I love what Bob Kauflin says specifically about this hindrance. He says, It is only hypocritical when we act a certain way to give others a false impression of our spirituality. A better response is to acknowledge our lack of desire for God as evidence of our innate sinfulness, and to begin to fill our minds with the truths about His kindness, mercy, holiness, grace, and goodness, especially expressed to us in the gospel. We then act in faith, trusting that God will give us a greater passion for him. When you don't feel anything towards God, my encouragement is to lean in all the more. Finally, hindrance number four, the elevation of preference. You could go to a hundred different churches and you get 100 different styles, 100 different preferences displayed. Well, I've heard it said once that if the extent of your functional theology primarily revolves around the sentence, God loves me, well, what's the object of that sentence? Me. I can too easily become the object of my own faith and not God himself. Paul Tripp says, worship is a regular and gracious reminder that it is not about you. You've been born into a life that is a celebration of another. When we elevate preference or our own tradition and disconnect from corporate worship because it's uncomfortable, we are first not honoring the Lord, but we are also missing out on the great benefit and blessing of worshiping alongside brothers and sisters in Christ. Now, of course, everyone is entitled to their own preference, and I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. Not every song we sing on Sunday mornings is my favorite. Shocker, I know. But here's the problem. The problem comes when we are unwilling to set those preferences aside to engage with God and fellow believers the way he has called us to in the local church. Have you ever thought about the fact that God doesn't give a specific preference? He doesn't give a prescribed style or a particular preference in the Bible when it comes to worship? I think that was probably intentional. And maybe this is an area you need to grow in this morning. I wanna summarize some of this by one of my favorite quotes when it comes to worship and worshiping physically. It's in a book called How to Worship a King. And the author summarizes it by saying this. Our physical expression should help people see the greatness of God's glory in Christ. and may feel uncomfortable at times, we may find ourselves on our knees broken over our sin while others sing on. Seemingly unaffected, it will mean we have to make every effort to engage with God and not simply our emotions. It will certainly mean that we'll never think any physical expression is adequate to fully express our amazement at God's mercy in drawing us to himself through the Savior. It will look different at different times, in different churches, and in different cultures, but there is no question that we have to help each other understand that God is worthy of our deepest, strongest, and purest affections, and that our bodies should show it. Some of this might have been a challenge for you this morning, and it might have been a lot. I'm just praying that God would use this time to help us grow. Ultimately, my heart for us this morning is for us to know Christ more deeply, to have our hearts stirred for Christ more fully, and our response, as we've said multiple times this morning, to always be worship. And I'm praying that we would all have the humility to recognize that none of us have arrived in this area. We all have room to grow. And that we can walk away resolved to do just that, to grow in our capacity to worship the Lord together at Ascend Church, living a life that is fully devoted to Christ in head, heart, and hand.