Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, August 24th. Do you view church attendance as just another item in your busy week? If so, you may be missing one of the primary purposes of the body of Christ. Stay with us as we clarify and deepen our understanding of worship in the church. Would you turn please to Acts chapter 2 and we're continuing our series on the church and the title of this message, The Church Worshiping.
And if you'll recall in chapter 2 that Peter has preached his famous sermon at Pentecost, And their response was, Men and Brethren, what shall we do? And of course, 3,000 people or more were saved. Lives were being changed. They were worshiping in the temple and also in the homes. And if you'll notice, beginning in this 46th verse, He tells us in verse 46 what was happening as they were worshiping together.
They were breaking bread together, they were selling the things that they had. They were having all things in common, and he says in verse 46, And day by day, that is day after day, continually, With one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Now the first function of the church is worship. That is a priority over evangelism and a priority over missions. Worship is the first function.
Now, God wants his people worshiping together. He says, Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, and when you come together, he says, You are to encourage one another. What I want us to look at today, I want us to look at three facets of worship in the body of Christ in the church. And in this chapter here, in verse 46 and 47, here they are. First of all, the activity of worship in the church.
And I believe according to the scriptures, there are two activities that are involved in true worship. That is, true worship is going to involve two activities on our part. And the first activity is. There is going to be praise of God with our lips. If we really and truly are worshiping him, we're going to praise him with our lips.
All through the Old Testament, he says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. He says, come, let us bow down and worship him. Psalm after psalm, speaking of praising him.
So we praise him with our lips. We praise him in song. We praise him in prayer. We adore him. And so there are many, many ways to express that adoration and praise.
Now in the body of Christ, you and I must make room and allow for people to worship the Lord in the way God leads them. And if God is leading them, They will not be pompous. They'll not be egotistical. It'll not be a matter of pride. They won't be expressing themselves.
It'll be an expression out of their spirit of their love and devotion to Jesus Christ, whatever form that takes. It will never cause confusion in the body, nor will it ever violate the principles of this book if it is worship according to Scripture. But we cannot force other people into our mold. And you see, this is where we are. Most of us came out of a culture and out of a background that when you go to church to worship, you sit, you be quiet, you certainly do not smile, you don't raise your voice, you wouldn't dare clap.
In fact, you just wouldn't do anything. At all, to make anybody feel uncomfortable. When in reality, there ought to be a freedom and a liberty in our worship. And that is exactly what is true in the New Testament church. They not only worshiped in the temple, the Bible says they were going from house to house, they were cooking big, wonderful meals and excited.
They were eating, they were praising, they were singing, they were studying the Word of God. They were having a wonderful, beautiful, exciting time worshiping the Lord God.
So the first activity is praise from our lips. The second activity is, listening, is service in our life. Lip service only and calling that worship is far removed from the Word of God. All of us know the hundredth Psalm. Make a joyful noise with the Lord, all ye lands.
He says, Come before his courts with singing, serve the Lord. Serving and praising Him are two aspects of worship. Our life is to be an expression of service and worship. In Ephesians chapter 1, look there if you will, and verse 12. In verse 11, he says, We've obtained a tremendous inheritance, having been predestined, listen now, according to his purpose.
That is, Hebrew predetermines something wonderful for us according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will to this end. That is, this is what he's predestined. That we who were the first to hope in Christ should live or be to the praise of His glory. He says that He has predestined us to live to the praise of His glory. That our life should be an expression of worship and praise and adoration of who God Almighty is.
So if we're going to worship the Lord God, we must praise Him with our lips, but likewise we must serve Him with our life. And how do you serve the Lord God? By humbling ourselves. And serving other people. That's the way we serve him.
So he says, true, genuine worship is going to result in the praise from my lips and likewise the service of my life. The second thing I want you to notice here in the activity is that there are two motivations involved in the body of Christ worshiping Him. What is the first motivation?
Well, somebody would say, well, surely the first motivation is that you love God, and that is not the first motivation.
Now I want you to get this very, very clearly. And listen to me. The foundation of all motivation for worshiping Almighty God is knowing God. One of the primary reasons that they're are many people who meet together and they come together on Sunday and they sit and listen to a sermon, sing a couple songs, pray and give and go home and never feel, never experience, never sense genuine Holy Spirit worship.
Now the reason is this, that so few people really and truly know God. There are lots of folks who've been to church 20, 30, 40, 50 years. They know all kinds of facts about him. But listen, you can know facts about God without knowing God. But to know him is to know him through a personal experience with Jesus Christ, whereby we discover the ways of God.
We discover the principles of God. We discover the way he works in the human heart. We discover the love of God. We discover the forgiveness of God. We discover the majesty of God, the greatness, the omnipotence, the omniscience, the omnipresence, the glory.
We discover the love of God, the mercy of God, the justice of God, the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the attributes of God. Only when you and I begin to understand a little bit of who He really is, only then will we worship God and remember this, that all worship that is not directed toward Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, God, all worship that is not directed toward him is not worship, but it is pure human superstition. And the world is full of superstition. In the occult, there is a tremendous amount of superstition. They talk about worshiping God when somebody tells you they worship God and they're in the occult of this branch or that branch or the other branch.
You ask them one simple question: which God is it that you are worshiping? There is only one God, and the only way to worship that God is to worship Him, the Bible says, in spirit and in truth. In spirit, not in flesh. In truth, not in error.
So you see that the foundation of all true worship is knowing the truth about God.
Now think about this. Once you know who he is by personal experience, he's not somebody just up there, out there, over here, in there. He isn't somebody you call on in case of an emergency. He's somebody that invokes something from you because once you discover who he is, something begins to happen. You see the man who comes to church week after week and does not know God.
He doesn't understand why we want to sing and pray and go on and on and on and not go home at 12 o'clock. He looks at his watch, 12 o'clock, time to go home. Listen, when a man understands who God is, When a man is praising God with his lips, when a woman is understanding who God is and serving him, we don't check the time, we check God. The focus of attention is God, not time. We are the ones who've come out of the culture and have contributed to the idea that you worship God from 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock on Sunday, and that's it.
When true genuine worship is anything and everything you and I do, to the glory of Almighty God, in the name of Jesus Christ, in keeping with His principles, in line with His word, it is worshiping God. Because it is praise from my lips and it is service in my life. It can be done in the church building or standing in the sink washing dirty dishes. It is the attitude of the human heart because you see, worship is an expression. Is it is an expression of worth that I place upon something?
I value something. I praise that. It is worth something because. Of its value to me. Almighty God is worthy of my praise, worthy of your praise.
He saved us, sustains us, keeps us, and He's taken us to heaven. When you and I get down to the hard, cold facts of whether we know God and love Him and worship Him or not, friend, so many things that we talk about wouldn't even be in our vocabulary if we really and truly knew God and knew how to worship Him. The second motivation is love. Listen. The more I know about Him, the more I'm going to love Him.
The more I love Him, the more I'm going to worship Him. The more I worship Him, the more I'm going to want to give of myself to those about me to share the life of Christ. You see, the very idea of people all over the world going to church, sitting and listening to sermons, and going back and thinking nothing about God until next week. That's not worship. Listen, when you and I assemble together to worship God and to praise Him and to thank Him and to give evidence that God is in our life.
Who in the world wants to run home, worried about whether the stew is going to be burning or not? Listen, that's not worshiping God. Listen. When we are worshiping God, the only thing that has our attention is: what is God saying to me? Who is this God?
What more can I discover about him? I want to praise him, thank him, shout, glory, hallelujah, amen, glory to God. Or I may want to sit in absolute awe and absolute silence, not moving because I'm in the presence of Almighty God, and I don't want to budge. We express it in different ways, but I'm saying to you: when a man knows God and loves God, he's not concerned about anything else for the moment. You see, what we have to ask is, do we know him?
If you don't know him, you're not going to want to worship him. And if you don't know him, you can't love him. You can't love somebody you don't know. You may like them, but you can't love them. Second thing I want us to notice here is the attitude.
the true attitude, the right attitude, the attitude of worship in the church. And if you'll notice what he says beginning in this 46th verse. Because here is the attitude these people had. The true attitude of worship. Remember Jesus said to the woman at the well, worship me in spirit and in truth.
In spirit, not in the flesh. Likewise, in truth, we must know it.
Now, look to see the attitude of these people as they worship the Lord together in the temple and from house to house. Verse 46. day by day, day after day, continuously. With one mind in the temple, breaking bread from house to house.
Now, one mind, listen, a group of people, the corporate body of Christ, cannot worship God with a divided mind. We're not worshiping God if we're sitting here thinking about what we're going to do tomorrow, what we didn't do yesterday, and what I'm going to do this afternoon. That's not worship. I want to tell you, you can't worship God thinking about other things. You may be in a so-called worship service, but you're not worshiping God if you're wondering about what you're going to do next.
Listen, to worship God, I must focus upon Him. Let me give you a little clue that might help you. When I get out to pray sometime and my mind's Tossing with other things, I've discovered the best thing I can do is just stop. And just focus my attention upon God and begin to review in my mind and heart out loud with my own lips the attributes of God. Thank you, Father, for your omnipotence, all-powerful.
For your omnipresence, I'm in your presence. For your omniscience, you know all there is about me, so you can't be disappointed. For your holiness, because you are indeed holy. For your faithfulness, I can always know that you'll be there. And on and on and on I go.
My friend, listen, it won't take but about two minutes of that and your mind has been cleared of all the other junk in life and you're focusing upon God and worshiping Him, then you can get back to the minor things like your request and mine. You see, you can't worship God with your mind on something else. And the purpose of the sermon week after week is to lay one principle on top of the other so you'll know something else about God, challenge you, reprove you, convict you, lift you up, bless you, encourage you in order to do what? Not that you look at the pulpit, but that you focus your attention upon God. He and He alone must be the focus of our attention.
Watch these people. Scripture says That is, they met together, singleness of mind, breaking bread from house to house. They had a servant spirit. We're going to eat at my house tomorrow. We'll eat at your house the next day.
Somebody says, We'll eat our house tomorrow.
So they were serving one another, breaking bread from house to house. They were taking their meals together. A sense of oneness, unity, togetherness. with gladness of heart. They were glad, joyous, and happy.
Sincerity of heart, nothing fake and hypocritical about it. What they were feeling and their praise and their rejoicing was all out of a spirit because you know what had happened? These folks had discovered something new about God that revitalized their whole faith. Pentecost had happened. The Spirit of God had come.
Christ was truly resurrected, and they knew that they had suddenly launched that on a whole new lifestyle with the presence of the Holy Spirit in their life. It was their new knowledge of Christ. new knowledge of God, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, motivating a love and devotion to Him. They wanted to serve one another and praise the Lord and share their faith. Verse 47, they were praising God and having favor with all the people.
And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. There is an attraction in the body of Christ when the people of God are God-focused. God-oriented. Their lips are praising Him, their lives are serving Him. Listen, there is no way to keep that to ourselves.
When you and I are worshiping the Lord God, there is going to be that attraction. There's going to be that magnetism. There's going to be that appeal. There's going to be that attitude and spirit about us that will pull to not us but to Christ within us those who are seeking help. What is that attraction?
First of all, believers are edified. The believers, God's people, began to be built up. The scripture says they were breaking bread from house to house, teaching the apostles' doctrine, having fellowship with each other, and praying and singing. These people were enjoying the presence of one another. The encouragement of each other.
the teaching of one another. They were growing in their faith, growing in their understanding, hearing the testimonies. Can you not imagine the testimonies that must have been shared in that first New Testament church when they were meeting from house to house? I mean, all over Jerusalem, groups of people meeting together, talking about the fact of what Jesus Christ had done in their lives and what happened at Pentecost, their new insight into who God is. The body is edified.
When I understand Him, when I love Him, when I'm in the midst of worship, that ought to be the experience and ought to be the result of my worshiping Him. First of all, the body's going to be edified. Not only that lost people are going to be saved. Look at that last verse. He says, And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Listen, when you and I are worshiping God and our life is Christ-centered and God, listen, when he is overflowing in your life and mind by our conversation, our conduct, by our love and devotion to him, you can't hide one of God's children. You can't cover the radiance. You can't cover the countenance of the face of a child of God who has learned to worship the Lord. Who loves God, who cares, who's willing to give, willing to pay the price, willing to sacrifice their own person, their possessions, and all that they have to Jesus Christ. The third thing that's going to happen is it's so evident that God's going to be glorified.
That's why he created you and me. to glorify himself. And that simply means that Almighty God wants you and me to be a reflection. of him. Listen.
What we focus our attention upon most Is what we become like. If it's things your life will become materialistic. If it is God. You're alive. will become Christ-like.
And listen. The more I know him, The more I love him. The more I love him, The more I'm going to worship him. And the more I worship Him, the more I'm going to want to pour out my life. into the lives of others.
You think about this, if you will. Can any honest man or woman say, I'm saved. Know the Lord, love God. Without worshiping the Lord. And can a man ever rationalize or excuse himself?
For not giving to God first of all his life. His family, his possessions, his time, his talent, his gifts that God has given him. How can we ever withhold that? Listen, if Almighty God is God. He deserves my worship.
And if I do not give it... What? It's my excuse. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you and praise you and bless your holy name.
We bow before you in submission and subjection willingly, voluntarily, and lovingly. desiring that our lips praise you and honor you and adore you. and that our life served you by pouring ourselves out. into the lives of other people. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior.
our access to you. Our hope in you. our better understanding of you. Your reflection of yourself. I pray in Jesus' name that today that you will have spoken to every single heart personally.
piercingly unforgettably. that each one of us would have to evaluate. Yeah. to whom we really and truly belong. according to our actions.
And this I ask in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Thank you for listening to The Church of Worshiping. 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 InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org.
This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
