Chris McCurley: you Well. The first time I was taken out of church for misbehaving. My mother and I were sitting in the pew. Everyone had their head down and their eyes closed except for me. I was restless, stirring. Thinking of some way that I might could break the silence. I thought about clapping. Thought about whistling. I thought about stomping my feet. But I settled on. Cow noises. And so I started just mooing a little bit under my breath where only my mother and those in our immediate circle could hear. And my mother kept her head down, her eyes closed and just kind of nudged me as if to say cut it out. And I did momentarily. But the temptation got the best of me and so I began mooing a little louder. This time more and more people heard it. And this time my mother opened one eye and looked at me as if to say do that again and find out what happens. And so I stopped. But the daredevil in me could not be contained. And so finally, I blurted out as loud as I could one last moo. And my mother picked me up, took me outside and began to beat the moos out of me. And all of you probably have a similar story of where you've been restless in church and you had to be taken out or maybe you have to be taken out. Maybe your mother or father just handled it in the pew. But the truth of the matter is this is not a problem relegated to young people. All of us have probably found ourselves at one time or another being restless during worship. We can probably all relate to being Uncomfortable just sitting still and not being active and not stirring and doing something because we're a product of our society aren't we? I mean we live in a world that promotes busyness and restlessness and it's killing us spiritually. We have zero time for spiritual formation, zero time for prayer, zero time for Bible study, zero time for worship, zero time for God. And everyone who is sitting here this morning knows exactly what I'm talking about because all of you, including me at some time or another, have allowed your schedule to control you. And maybe you are allowing your schedule to control you at this moment. Maybe you have not mastered your minutes. Maybe they have mastered you. And like we talked about in the very first lesson in this series, I don't mean to offend you, but that's your fault. Because by and large, you make your schedule. So if it controls you, that's something that you have to pivot and change before it gets the best of you. We live a life in a certain rhythm, but that rhythm is typically not set to God's music. It's a rhythm that is attuned to the song of the day, and that song is all about busyness and hurriedness. And like we've already talked about in this series, sometimes we need a disruption. Sometimes we need a time out where we hit the pause button, we exercise crowd control, and we just get away and spend time alone with the Father. quality time with God. That's what we're doing this morning. However, my hope and prayer is that this isn't the only time that you get with God, that you focus on Him, that you spend time in worship with Him. I know you have a full schedule. I know you have too many irons in the fire. But my hope is that worship is not an additive, meaning it's not one more thing you add to your busy schedule. My hope is that worship becomes something that defines you. And it's not just something you do. It's all about who you are. It's your character. It is the driver, the catalyst for your life. How about we make Sunday and this time together the highlight of our week? How about that? How about this becomes the highlight of our week instead of another day with its own set of rules? Because you know what I'm talking about. Every day has a mood. It has an attitude. Monday has a feel, doesn't it? I mean, Monday's tough to get back in the rhythm, get back in the groove. Friday has a feel to it. Can't wait till Friday. We're living for Friday, living for the weekend. Saturday has a mood or a feel to it. That's the day we get some yard work done, some chores done around the house, or we just relax. Wednesday has a feel. Wednesday's hump day. You know, you've gotten halfway through the week. Does Sunday have a feel? And hopefully it's more than just, hey, I got to go to church. Hopefully it's not an additive, but it's the driver, the catalyst. And we're not just getting through it. We're using Sunday to be the springboard for the rest of the week. This is the celebration that highlights our week and begins our week each week so that we can make it the best week ever for Christians every week. begins with a holiday. begins with a celebration. Every first day of the week, we come together to celebrate a victory. And you know what that victory is? It's victory over sin and death. We celebrate our new life in Christ. And that deserves our full attention because you were plucked from the fires of hell. You had no hope without Christ. And now, because King Jesus rules and reigns, you have hope. And it's a hope like nothing else. That's cause for celebration. If you can't celebrate that, then I don't know what to do. I don't know that I can help you. You see, we ourselves are here to worship. But we're also here to celebrate the one who has brought us out of the land of the dead into the land of the living. Now, just to be clear. Here's what I'm not talking about when I talk about worship this morning. I'm not talking about just what we do here on Sunday, every first day of the week at a building. I'm talking about more than that. This is important, but this isn't all. that we're talking about. You've heard me say it over and over again, and I will say it until I die. But one of the biggest problems that the church faces is that in all of our efforts to be the first century church, we failed to realize that they were a movement, not a monument. And many of our churches have become a monument, and their buildings stand as a mausoleum to a once great movement. We've got to be a movement again if we want to be the first church. And if we want to function as God designed us, then we have to gather and we have to scatter. Like I've said before, when you go to a football game, the team may huddle and you watch that huddle, but you don't go to the game just to see them huddle. You go to the game to see them eventually break the huddle and to execute the game plan. That's what we're doing. I love our huddles. I love that we huddle every first day of the week. We come together, we huddle and we talk about the game plan and we worship the father. But at some point you've got to break the huddle, right? You've got to go and execute the game plan. So I'm not talking about worship this morning. just from the standpoint of what we do at Sunday at agreed upon time at a building. Worship is not the only context in that it occurs in a building. And it really bothered me during the pandemic. I would hear people say because we closed our churches and you can agree or disagree with that we were doing what we thought was right at the time, but it bothered me that people would say, well, you know, we can't worship. Your church is closed baloney. You were never stopping worship. You shouldn't have been anyway. It's not that you couldn't worship. You could always worship. You were never kept from worshiping. Worship was never shut down. Worship is not confined to meeting at a building twice a week and a agreed upon time. So when we talk about worship this morning, I'm not just talking about what we do here on Sunday because you do realize that this isn't the only time we worship, right? There are two Greek words that are prominently used in the Bible for worship. The first one is proskuneo. And proskuneo just simply refers to bowing down or being prostrate before someone or something that you ascribe full worth to. And of course, for us, that is the Holy Father. But there's another word for worship. It's latreo. And latreo refers to worship that is like service. For instance, Paul uses this word, let's roll in Romans chapter 12 verse one. Therefore I urge you brothers and sisters by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. So there's Prescuduo, which we do at a building, right? When we come together, maybe not always in a building, maybe. Maybe we do that somewhere else, but we're coming together as a church family. We're assembling to worship God. We're buying before him. Prosecuting. ⁓ then you have Lutreo, which is our spiritual act of service, which really defines hopefully our life as a Christian. So there are certain expressions of worship that take place every Sunday, every first day of the week as we gather as the church. But there is a spiritual act of service that we call worship that hopefully defines our life. And scripture doesn't just assign the label of worship to Sunday and the assembly. Now we only know worship as a verb. But that hasn't always been the case. You see, worship was also known many moons ago as a noun. We look at worship strictly as something that we do. But there was a time when worship was more than that. People were referred to as your worship or your worshipfulness. Now this was usually a title reserved for royalty and simply meant that they were worthy of respect. And we know that God is our object of worship. He is worthy of our worship. We ascribe worth to Him. In fact, that is the ancient etymology of the word worship. It's worth-ship. That's literally what it means. Worship is ascribing worth to something. So God is who we worship, but He is our worth ship. is worthy of our worship. So we recognize and acknowledge the ultimate value of our Lord and we ascribe him worth and we appreciate his worth. That's what we're doing in worship. We are ascribing worth and value to the Almighty through the engagement of our entire being. So worship should define you. It's not something you do. It's who you are. I'm reminded of the ⁓ the lady that visited church one Sunday morning. And she sat behind another lady who had a son who was about five years old and this son had a real problem sitting still and worship as a lot of our children do you understand that right there just kids they don't understand what all we're going through and what we're doing here and so he's sitting there he's restless but he keeps standing up in the pew and turning around and smiling at the woman behind him and the woman behind him loved it she would smile back but the mother wasn't so. happy about it. She would grab the boy and slam him down in the seat and say pay attention, know, but he kept getting up and turning around and smiling at the woman. Finally, the mother had enough and she sat him down and said, Stop smiling. Don't you know we're in church and and hopefully. Hopefully you smile. When you're here. I don't know who ever decided. That worship has to be like a funeral. But I don't want to invite that guy back, whoever that was. Worship doesn't have to be funeral. It doesn't always have to be somber. I don't know who decided it did, but that that's not the case. I see a lot of celebration among the church family in the New Testament. And so I want you to smile. Don't you think God wants you to be happy to be here? Don't you think that God endowed you with those emotions so that you would be happy that you would celebrate that you would show joy? I think some of what we do is often time or some of what we think sometimes is just a reaction of what other people do and think. And that's not always a great standard. Turn with me to Romans, Chapter one. I want to take a few moments. To reflect on the other side of the issue. We could start with the question why worship God or why is it important or significant to worship God? But I want to start with a different question. If we don't worship God. What are the consequences? Let that be our question this morning. If we fail to worship God, what happens? Let's begin reading in verse 18 of Romans, Chapter 1. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God. or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Pay attention to that verse. wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Why? Because God had made it evident to them. You could look around and you could find evidence for God. Those of us living in middle Tennessee can look around this time of year and find evidence for God very easily, right? I mean, what a beautiful day yesterday to just, you know, see the see the trees in full bloom and leafed out. I mean, I feel like that happened overnight. That's gorgeous, right? Just look around you in nature. See how it functions. You can see God and his fingerprints all over it. But these people, their foolish hearts were hardened. There was plenty of evidence to point them to the existence of God, namely creation. But they ignored the evidence and instead chose to worship something else. And here's the result. A failure to worship God affects how we relate to God. How's that for the obvious? A failure to worship God affects how we relate to God. That is the reason why God is angry when humans fail to honor him. And it's not because he needs to satisfy his massive ego. He knows that brokenness stems from a failure to worship. Failure to see God for who he is results in a failure to see the world in And it really is a failure to see ourselves as we truly are. Isaiah chapter six, beginning of verse one. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of his robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each having six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, with two he flew, and one called out to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory and the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out while the temple was filling with smoke. Notice that first verse again. In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne. Uzziah was a great king. He reigned for 52 years and while he reigned, there was prosperity. If you know anything about the king system from the Old Testament, you know that when you had a good king, You had good results for the most part when you had a bad king you had bad results. Uzziah was a good king. And so Uzziah is gone and the people had to be wondering OK well what's going to happen now. Isaiah had to be thinking. What's going to happen. We've had all of this prosperity for 52 years things have been great. Who's going to who's going to reign and rule now and what's going to happen when they do will they be a good king will they be a bad king. God speaks to the prophet. It says, worry about that. I'm on the throne. But Isaiah has this encounter with God and what does he do? He recognizes his own frailty, his own brokenness, his own sinfulness. Woe is me for I'm a man of unclean lips. Isaiah has an encounter with God and he realized, I don't belong in this room. I can't stand before a holy God. And we see this over and over again in the Bible when someone has an encounter with God, they fall on their knees, they fall on their face because they recognize his holiness and they realize that they cannot stand. And Isaiah teaches us something. That when we encounter God, we must recognize our frailty before him, recognize that he is on the throne, that it's all going to be OK, but also an encounter with God cannot help but change you, right? You were never the same. Your worship will never be the same when you truly encounter God like Isaiah. You realize who you are, who he is, and you cannot stand back to Romans one. Notice verses 22 and 23. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Failure to worship God affects how we relate to creation. It's not that the people in Paul's crosshairs weren't worshipping. It's that they weren't worshipping the right God. People worship all sorts of things. If they don't worship God, they worship little G gods, maybe many, maybe several, but everyone worships something. You've probably noticed that the Bible seems to be obsessed with idolatry. Over and over again in the pages of Scripture, we find the Holy Spirit alerting us to the dangers of the devotion to anything other than a holy God. And the theme of idolatry beats us over the head with its persistence and for good reason because when it comes to the issue of idolatry, we human beings have unlimited creativity, Idolatry inserts a substitute for the substance. Idolatry is replacing God. Even if that replacement is a good thing, if it replaces God, it's no longer a good thing. Because God comes first, everything else is secondary. He is the only one worthy of our worship. So if it becomes the sole object of our affection, then it's no longer good. Regardless of the substitute, it will always be vastly inferior to the Almighty God. Do you remember the purpose for which you were created? You can find that purpose in Genesis one. The purpose for which you were created. And I think sometimes we fail to recognize or remember this. But the purpose for which you were created was to co-reign and rule with God. That was the purpose for which you were created. And man failed in living out that purpose. And so, man now is being ruled by creation, in a sense, right? That's what the fall does. And so no longer is man ruling and reigning over creation. Now it rules and reigns over us. We have become slaves because when you worship something, you belong to that something. What you revere, you resemble either for ruin or restoration. Because we worship creation rather than the creator, our relationship with the creation changed. And now the creation is ruling over us. Keep reading. Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity. to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than creator who is blessed forever. Failure to worship God affects how we relate to ourselves even. We were made to be God's image bears. That goes back to Genesis one verses 26 and following the God said, let us make man in our image. according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth we us We're made in the image of the us. The Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, all their creation, all a part of the creation process. Did you notice that? That is the us that is being talked about. And we were made in their image. Now, obviously, that image is not physical in nature. The word that's used in the Greek is icon, E-I-K-O-N. It's where we get our word icon. An icon means what you would think it means if you know what an icon is. It's a manifestation, a representation. of something or someone, and that's what we were designed to be a manifestation or representation of the living God. Acon is the word for image, and it involves those two concepts. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 1549. Just as we have become the image of the earthly, we also bear the image of the heavenly. So the idea of this icon. Is that we are a representation derived from a prototype? We may look like Adam. but we more accurately represent the us that created us. And so our purpose should be to seek to live out that representation and that manifestation every day in everything that we do because God created mankind to mirror him. The question becomes, who do you think you are? If you don't know, you fail to worship God. I'll tell you who you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be an image bearer of the one who created you. But when you fail to worship the true God, you bear the image of a lesser God at our core. We are imaging creatures and it is not possible to be neutral on this. You will either reflect the creator or something in creation. You will either honor God by living out your purpose or you will pervert your purpose by living for something else. Notice verses 26 to 32. Romans 1. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. Failure to worship God affects how we relate to other people. Can you find yourself in this list that Paul gives here in Romans chapter one? Yeah, you can. Every one of us can. Maybe you're more than one thing on that list. I mean, who among us has not been disobedient to their parents at some point? I mean, hopefully there's some of these that you don't you haven't emulated in your life, but. We can all find ourselves in this list. We've all gossiped. We've all envied. We've all coveted. Maybe we've slandered. We've all done something mentioned on this list. And at the root of this, the root cause of all things like covetousness and malice and envy and murder, strife, all these things, these are all sins that involve the treatment of our fellow man. And as we commit such sins, what's the root cause? And I would submit to you, it's a failure to worship God. When we fail to properly honor God, it affects how we see other people. Other people become objects to be used or obstacles to be overcome. You remember the Shema that the Jews still pray three times a day. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. You cannot fulfill the second if you ignore the first. You've heard me talk about it many times, the vertical and the horizontal. The vertical can't be straight if the horizontal is crooked and vice versa. You can't love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength if you don't love your neighbor as yourself. You cannot honor God as holy without taking care of your fellow man. You cannot expect the vertical to be straight if the horizontal is crooked. So back to our question. Why does worship matter? Because it affects how we relate to God, His creation, ourselves, and to other people. That's the whole of your existence, isn't it? How you relate to God, creation, yourself, and to other people. Worship keeps things in the proper order. Failure to worship disrupts God's rhythm and we should all want to live by his rhythm rather than our own. We need to view life, all of life through the lens of worship. Worship should affect you, not just on Sunday, but the rest of the week, every day that ends in Y. This is your tuning fork, this is your pitch pipe, this is your metronome. We come together the first day of the week. to get our lives in order. This is where we get our rhythm for the rest of the week. This day, this occasion sets the tone for the rest of the week. It's not just to say, I'm here. It's not about an obligation or a duty. That's not why you're here. You're not here to sing a few songs and take communion and then jet off to your car and go home and resume the rest of the week like nothing ever happened. You were guilty. But you've been redeemed. You were destined for an eternity away from God and now you've been rescued, you've been delivered. You deserve eternal punishment, yet you have peace and that peace that you have that deserves your worship. It deserves celebrating, not just one day of the week, but every day. was reading the story the other day about one of Napoleon's soldiers. He was a loyal and faithful soldier. And he was shot. And so the medic that was taking care of him, remember this was in the days where medical procedures were pretty primitive. The medic that was taking care of him was poking his finger through the bullet hole and probing around to try to find the bullet. And the guy was completely awake, right? He's probing around and he hits the man's And the man looks at the medic and says, an inch deeper, and you'll find the emperor. How deep is our connection to the one that we worship? If you're like me, I want it to be deeper and I'm striving for that. I want to be closer to God. But I can tell you this, the closer you are to God, the worship just pours out of you. You cannot help it. It's not something you do. It's who you are. Remember this quote? It's my favorite quote. I come back to it all the time. Every man is as close to God as he wants to be. You say, well, I just want to be closer to God. No, you don't. You don't. If you wanted to be closer to God, you would be. How close to God are you? How close to God do you want to be? Every man is as close to God as you want to be. So contemplate that this morning. Think about that. Because the closer you are to God, the more worship just pours out of you. And you will not see this as an obligation or a duty or something you just do or something you go to. Your life will be defined by it. It's your character. It's the catalyst. It's the driver. of your life. I want to close with these words. These are not my words, as you will be able to tell. but it defines everything we've been talking about this morning much better than I could. Psalm 29. Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name, worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders the Lord over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bare. and in His temple all cry, glory. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord sits enthroned as King forever. May the Lord give strength to His people. May the Lord bless His people with peace. The psalmist is bringing forth His worship in this prayer, this song, and he's saying, it all comes back to you, It all comes down to this. You are who you are, and because of that, we are who we are. But will we live out our purpose and will we direct our lives? Our worship back to you? That's the question on the table this morning. Do you pray with me? God, thank you for this day. For this opportunity. Thank you so much for. Your love, your grace, your mercy. May we ascribe ultimate worth to you. Here, yes, but also in our daily living. May you be blessed by the people that you have blessed. We love you. We thank you. And it's in your son's precious name we pray. ⁓ Before I offer an invitation. I feel like I need to. Alert you to something. So many of you know what's going on in my life health wise, but. Of the trillion side effects, this medication that I'm taking. One of his brain fog. So hopefully you haven't noticed that too much, but I do think it's proper to maybe tell you that not to give myself an excuse, but so that if you see me kind of have a glitch in the system where. You know, maybe I I pause for a minute. I've actually gotten to where I write everything down. You may have noticed that too. I'm reading it because I've written everything down to try to combat this, but for two years you may see you know me short circuiting at time or two. So hopefully I know you'll give me grace on that, but I want you to know that nothing's wrong. It's just I've definitely felt it a few times. I had to look up something the other day sports wise and if you know me, I never have to look up anything sports wise. Actually had to look it up to see so. Appreciate your patience there. Love you too. Thank you. I love all of you. Can we help you this morning? Can we pray with you? Jeff said in his prayer, so many people dealing with so you can't sling a cat, not hit somebody that's dealing with adversity of some kind and probably cancer, you know, or or dementia or Alzheimer's or or or so many myriad of other things. And we want to pray with you and for you. Or maybe. Maybe you look at this quote and you say, you know, I'm not as close to God as I want to be, but I want to get there. We want to help you get there as a family. I mean, it starts with a daily walk with God, and maybe you haven't put on Christ in baptism. Maybe you haven't responded to the gospel. And by the way, it's not just about baptism. If you don't recognize Jesus as King, you don't understand the gospel. That's where it starts. We have a king and it's Jesus. So you recognize him first and then you put your faith in that king. You surrender to the king. And that surrender looks like repentance and confessing Jesus and being immersed in the waters of baptism for the remission of your sins. All hail King Jesus. And if you haven't done that, do that this morning. But if we can help you, why you come as we stand and as we sing.