Join us in today’s episode of the InTouch Podcast as we delve into the profound act of worship from a biblical perspective. Drawing on the story of Abraham, we’ll explore what worship truly means, beyond ritualistic displays. Worship, as described, involves an overflowing of the spirit and an intense focus on God, devoid of our worldly desires or distractions. Learn how to move beyond conventional prayer and praising to a state of being entirely occupied with God’s presence.
Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, November 3rd. Today’s program introduces our new series on worship from a biblical perspective. Part one begins with the story of Abraham in Genesis 22.
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If I should ask you to define worship, most of you would probably struggle at what that means. But let me just give you three words because I don’t know that anybody can adequately define what worship is. I think it probably would be defined best by what a person feels. At least that’s what most of us would do. But when I think about… Worship, I think of three words. The first one is overflowing. And that is when you and I are worshiping the Lord, is it not that we are overflowing with something within us? It is a spontaneous outpouring of an inner sense of awe and adoration and praise to the Lord. So first of all, there’s an overflowing. It’s like a spring just bubbling up and overflowing. The second word is an outpouring. When you and I are worshiping the Lord, what are we doing? Pouring out our heart to Him. Expressing in joy and thanksgiving and praise what we are feeling about Him on the inside. And then the third word, and I think this is the key word, the key word here in discussing what worship is, is the word occupation. Because when we are worshiping God, we are occupied with Him. We’re not occupied with their needs. We’re not occupied even with the blessings that God has given us. We’re just occupied with Him. We’re concentrating on Him. We’re thinking about Him. We’re rejoicing about who He is. We are adoring Him, admiring Him. We are praising Him. The focus of our attention is upon the Lord. And you see, there’s a difference between praying and praising the Lord in worship. Praying is usually occupied with their needs. Lord, and we tell them our needs. Praising is usually occupied with their blessings. What God has done for us. But worship means that we are occupied with God. We’re just focused in on Him. He’s the object of our affection. He’s the object of our admiration. He’s the object of our attention. He is the object of our concentration. It is just God. And God only. And you see, so many times… What we call worship isn’t worship at all. And I’m sure that very few people attend any church today and worship God. And when I think about what true worship is and think about the fact that worship is occupation with Him, and I really believe of all the definitions that I know of, there’s something about that word because praise, what are we doing? We are occupied with Him, but we are saying praise. I love you because of what you did for me. In prayer, I’m saying, Lord, here’s what I need you to do with me. But when you and I are worshiping him, we’re just saying, God, I love you just because you’re you. And somehow there are not many people who know how to do that. And the truth is, we verbalize with our lips, it may pass through our mind, but our spirit does not lift up and praise the Lord God because we’re not occupied with Him. People who are occupied with God are thinking about Him. They want to know more about him. They want to learn who he is. They want to figure out and decide, how can I give more of myself to him? They’re examining their hearts in the light of who he is. Looking at their lives in the light of what they ought to be. Looking at themselves in the light of what he desires for their heart. Men and women who are occupied with Jesus Christ are not occupied with things down here when they’re worshiping God. And for that reason, I say to you, most people have never worshipped God. Most church members have never worshipped Him. And most of them don’t know how, and the vast majority of us have never been taught how to worship God. Now, you can worship Him all alone. You can worship Him by twos, fours, twenties, or thousands. What determines whether you’re worshiping God or not? Not what goes on around you, but what occupies your mind and what you have your focus on. You know what? When you begin, when you really learn to worship the Lord, something happens in your relationship to it. Because when you learn to worship the Lord… What happens? While you recognize that He’s the sovereign God of the universe, there’s something happening. You see, the word transcendent means that He’s far above all things, and He is. But He sent the Holy Spirit to be within us so that He up there and we down here could come together. And that’s why when we pray, we’re not praying to God out yonder. He said the Holy Spirit walks by us, lives within us, above us, around us, under us. He’s everywhere. So we want to be able to know how to relate to him, to fellowship with him, to worship him, to bow down. But there’s several things involved. And the first one, of course, is becoming a Christian. That’s not the first point. But you recall in 1 Corinthians 2, Paul said, listen, he said, the things of the spirit of foolishness to the world, they don’t understand the things of God. So listen, no man has ever worshiped God who was not a Christian. Because, he says, spiritual things are spiritually discerned and apart from the Holy Spirit, you cannot worship God. Listen, in order to worship God, you and I must have the living Holy Spirit within us to lift our praise and worship to God because we can’t do it. How can a sinful, vile, wicked man worship a holy God? It is only when a righteous, living, holy Christ comes into our life through the Holy Spirit that the, listen, the Holy Spirit within us is the one who praises and who worships the Father through us. And I’m going to show you why in just a moment. But the only person who can worship God is a person who is indwelt by the Son of God. That is the only person who can genuinely worship God. All right, let’s look to see what happened because I think there’s some areas here that you and I need to get a hold of. All right, first thing I want you to get down is this. The true worship is based on a revelation of God. True worship is based on the revelation of God. The scripture says that the Lord spoke to Abraham and revealed himself to him. God revealed himself to Abraham so that he knew that it was God, but he didn’t know the God like you and I know him because he didn’t have a Bible. But he knew that God was speaking to him. And how did he know that? How did we know that he knew it? Because the very next morning, the Bible says, he didn’t get up at 1030. He got up early in the morning and he headed out in obedience to God. Now listen. Until you and I accept the revelation of God, you will not worship him. Because, listen, the foundation of all worship is the revelation of God. And in a few moments we’ll see in verse 5 that Abraham said to these two men who were with him, he said, you stay here, but my son and I, we are going to worship. We are going to prostrate ourselves before this God. We are going to sacrifice to this God. So when somebody says to you, oh yes, I worship God every Sunday. Do you believe the Bible? No. Then you don’t have to tell them, but you mark it down. They are not worshiping God. The second thing I want you to notice. The true worship is conditioned by faith in and obedience to the Word of God. Now listen. When a person bows before God, what are we doing? We are pouring at our heart, overflowing inside. We are occupied with Him. Let me ask you a question. How can a deliberate, disobedient life pour out, overflow, and be occupied with God when the heart is full of sin? When there is deliberate, known violation of Scripture that has not been confessed and repented of before God. You cannot worship God and live in sin at the same time. You cannot. You see, it is no matter whether you ought to or you shouldn’t. It’s the matter you can’t. You see, he says, we’re going up Mount Moriah to worship. And the reason he could do that is because when God said, Abraham, get up from your country. And he says, I want you to go to a mountain and sacrifice your son, the son whom thou lovest. He was going to sacrifice. He carried the wood and his son and a fire. And that’s the three things he needed to carry on the sacrifice. The wood, the fire, and the sacrifice itself. And he said, we are going to worship. The only reason he could do that was because he was in absolute obedience to the God who told him to do it. Now listen, one of the things you and I are going to do when we get to heaven is worship God forever. Think about this, how grieved he must be. Here are millions of people carrying Bibles under their arm, giving their money, talking to, praying to God, singing songs, get great big groups of people together and they sing, have all night sings and all these things and witnessing for the Lord and doing all this mighty work in these tremendous ministries for God. And here is the righteous holy God of all the universe up in heaven. You know what he’s wanting? He’s wanting our worship, not our actions, not all these other things. He’s interested in us worshiping him. When we learn to worship him, we won’t have to be begged. We won’t have to be preached at. We won’t have to be controlled. We won’t have to have any of that. When you’re worshiping God and you’re in love with him, friend, you’re going to give everything that you are, everything that you have is committed to him. Third thing I want you to notice. True worship demands a deliberate separation of ourselves unto God. A deliberate separation of ourselves unto God. Listen. He says, abide ye here with the ass of the donkey and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you. Abide ye here. Now watch this for a moment. He was talking about two men. But you know what happens? If you and I are going to worship God, you and I must, we must be willing to say to some people, excuse me. We must be willing to say to some things, I’m going to leave that there. Abide ye here while I go and worship the Father. And I’m not talking about being pious and sanctimonious. I’m talking about you and I must be willing to lay aside. Now watch this carefully. We must be willing to lay aside the things that distract us when we get alone with God. When you get by yourself with the Lord, what keeps popping up in your mind? Now watch this. You’ll miss this. I’m not talking about sin. I’m just talking about Making a living. I’m talking about your family. I’m talking about the natural, normal, necessary things of life. What are the things in life that keep cropping up when you are alone with God? You see, true worship demands a deliberate separation of myself unto Him. Listen. To shut it all out. To concentrate upon Him. To think upon Him. To ask God to shut out all these things. And you see so many people say, but when I get quiet, all these things keep passing through my mind. And that’s why I say you and I have to learn to worship. You could listen to 5,000 sermons, but if you don’t practice one of them, it won’t do you any good. You won’t learn to worship that way. And we’ll talk about more of that later. But now listen. A deliberate separation of yourself unto God. When is the last time you decided, I’m going to just get along with the Lord and just talk to him and be quiet and listen to God? You see, if you have to say, well, it’s been a couple of weeks or so since I’ve done that or a week, what you’re really saying is, I really haven’t worked. Let me tell you something. You will never learn to worship God publicly until you learn to worship him privately. There’s no way. A deliberate separation of yourself. That means it’ll take some time to do that. You’ll have to say no to some invitations. In fact, if you and I learn to worship God the way we ought to, we may even be misunderstood by somebody else. Maybe somebody in your family. But I believe this is a wise thing. I think every father ought to work this out somehow for his family. That somehow, if it is all possible, it may be that the apartment is so small, the house is so small, you can’t all do it at the same time. But I think a family ought to have an agreement that at some time, everybody either has a place or a time that they are allowed to be all by themselves. Because we live in a mad, rushing world. And this is why the Lord said, But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not think. They that wait upon the Lord. You know the best way to wait upon the Lord? Just be quiet all by yourself and focus your attention upon Him. True worship is occupation with a person. Not with needs nor blessings, but occupation with God Himself. All right, the next thing. True worship demands a renunciation of oneself. Now watch this. Verse 10, And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. At this one point in Abraham’s life, he was dead to his own desires. He had the absolute and total desire to die to the desire for a son because he had to kill him. Now let me ask you something. What are you willing to give up to learn how to worship God? Now, I’m not even talking about sin. I’m talking about the natural, normal desires of life. What are you willing to set aside just to be alone with the Lord? And you know what I’ve noticed sometimes? When the Lord really wants to get me along with Him, it is amazing what else I can want. It’s just like the devil says, what about this, this, this, this, this, this, and this? And of all the important things that I can suddenly realize that I need to do. All of them good things, part of the ministry or whatever it might be. And yet you see, if your purpose in mind is to glorify God, none of those things are… Listen, at the moment, none of those things are important. And all of us have had the times when God says… And you knew right then you ought to get on your knees somewhere and be by yourself and listen to God. And you didn’t do it. What happened? It just passed away. And you thought, well, I didn’t do it that time. And you thought you won and you lost. Next thing. True worship always glorifies God. Lifts the heart of God. Listen to what he said in verse 16. Verse 15, And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of the heavens the second time and said, By myself have I sworn. Now watch this. I think this is important. And it’s beautiful to me that the angel of the Lord, who is Christ, and he said, By myself have I sworn. Now friend, listen. When he says that, you can bet something’s going to happen. For because thou hast done this thing and has not withheld thy son, thy only son. You know what? He just glorified God. You think about this. Abraham offered the best and the most precious thing he had, his only son, to God. What does that say about God? It says that the God whom he’s serving is worthy of his very best. That’s why he ought to have our best time, our best concentration, the first fruits of our finances. God deserves the best. And we glorify God in worship by giving him the best. And then one last thing I want you to notice. True worship always results in a blessing for the worshiper. Listen to what he says in the next part of that verse. Verse 17. He says that in blessing I will bless thee. In multiplying I will multiply thy seed. As the stars of the heaven as the sand which is upon the seashore. And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Because thou hast obeyed my voice. When you and I glorify the Lord. giving Him ourselves and that which is worthy of Him, we’re going to be blessed. He always blesses those who honor Him with their best, willing to make a presentation. You see, listen, true worship doesn’t begin with what I have to lay on some altar. True worship begins with my attitude, my concentration, my heart, myself. He just wants you. And you see, the moment He gets you, The blessing begins.
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Thank you for listening to today’s podcast titled, Do You Know How to Worship? For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
