Bridge Church Vancouver

When worship is the pattern of your life it will begin to shape you as a person. it will shape your decisions, your attitudes about yourself and your life. One of the ways God begins to transform a persons life is in the process of worship.

in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will.

it is through worship that we begin to change as a person, we become alive spiritually and intellectually
it is through worship that we are able to become people of great faith.
when a person stops growing spiritually you can bet they have stopped worshiping

what is worship?
worship (n.)
O.E. worðscip, wurðscip (Anglian), weorðscipe (W.Saxon) "condition of being worthy, honor, renown," from weorð "worthy" (see worth) + -scipe (see -ship). Sense of "reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being" is first recorded c.1300. The original sense is preserved in the title worshipful (c.1300). The verb is recorded from c.1200.

worship is when we begin to see and respond to God as our creator, one worthy of great honor and respect. He is so great that I am willing to adjust my life to him and his ways.
that is when worship has become the pattern of my life.

but how do we do this? I can hear these words and understand the idea, but that doesnt make it real in my life.

There are many people in the Bible who worshiped God, but perhaps none with as great of faith as Abraham, and in Abrahams life, worship was a consistent pattern of his life. There are some lessons we can learn from Abraham that can help us make worship a pattern of our lives.

When God appears to you - it leads you to worship Him
7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

when we encounter the living God it changes the way we look at the rest of our lives, but the impact of that encounter is really dependent upon how we respond to him.

for some when they encounter God, they reject him. As absurd as that really sounds it happens quite often and if the truth were known. You and I have said 'no' to God as well. He says "I want you to go and talk to this person", "I want you to give this person this", "I want you to go and do this..." and we say "no"

His Spirit could convict a person to give Him their life, to trust him as their saviour, and they say "no"

There could be lots of reasons why people say "no" to him, but whenever someone says "no" to him it does impact the way they look at their life, and it limits their ability to worship Him as God.

God came to Abram and said "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."
Abram would have had lots of reasons to say 'no' to God.
Leave your country - the place you have rights and priviledges. the place of personal safety, security, and go to a land of great uncertainty.
Leave your people - the community where you have relationships, status, your known, respected, and go to a place where you are unknown, no body
Leave your father's household - your family, your inheritance, - Sara was baren, he had no 'known' possibility for a family
Abram had plenty of reasons to say 'no' to God and if he had, he could not have worshiped God in ANY of those areas of his life, he was not trusting God, he was not obeying God.

pat⋅tern -noun

a distinctive style, model, or form: a new pattern of army helmet.

a combination of qualities, acts, tendencies, etc., forming a consistent or characteristic arrangement: the behavior patterns of teenagers.

an original or model considered for or deserving of imitation: Our constitution has been a pattern for those of many new republics.

anything fashioned or designed to serve as a model or guide for something to be made: a paper pattern for a dress.

For Abram - Worship was a pattern of his life and there are some lessons we can learn from Abram's life that can help us establish worship as a pattern of our lives as well.

When God came to Abram, Abram said "yes" to God and that decision put him in a posture to be ready to worship God.
Gen. 12:4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him

Worship is an activity that reveals the place of your heart my activities reveal my heart

Abram left as God told him to
he didn't let obsticles hold him back - he was 75 yrs old

Abram wanted to respond to God
5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

it took effort to respond to God, it wasnt just Abram that was effected, but many people's lives were affected because Abram wanted to respond to God.
when things begin to affect other peoples lives you really find out how much you want to do something.

worship is like a window between your soul and God's heart

God desires to use his people to bless his people:
"I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
Gen. 12:3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

Worship is a time to peer into God's heart and also to pull back the curtains on your own
worship is a time to like David say:
Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

worship peels back our humanity, our fraility, our fears, our failings and is a time to say "I can't do this - I don't want to do this on my own any more. You are God and I will honor you, and I will look to you to show me how to live."

Worship defines how I live
if I am interacting with God - then I will worship
if I am trusting him
if I am obeying him
if I am looking to him to be God

when i stop looking to him to be God - I will stop worshiping
when i think i know what is best for me and my life - i will stop worshiping
when i don't want to respond to God - i will stop worshiping

This doesnt mean i don't go to church - there have been plenty of people attend a church service without worshiping God and they leave church un-effected and their lives do not look any differently than anyone else in the community.

if i am revealing my soul and seeing His heart - then I will worship

Worship is becoming the pattern of my life.