Point of Grace Worship 3.16.25 Sermon Notes – Lent Series on Worship – “He is God, i am Not”
“Gentlemen, This is a football.” – Vince Lombardi
Fundamentals of Worship
“He is God – I am not!”
“Come Hungry!”
Psalm 42 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 63 You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 8 I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.
Psalm 84 How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! 2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. 7 They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. 10 Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
This soul-deep “desire” for God, to be with Him, fuels the worshiping heart. The Psalmist’s reveal the depth of this desire with powerful words and metaphors like hunger, thirst, wanting, needing, seeking, longing, clinging, yearning, panting…!” This is fuel for worship!
Worshiping God out of “duty” without “desire” grows cold … as God lamented to Isaiah, “they worship me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” Worshiping God out of “desire” will do its “duty” with ever increasing joy!
Uncovering Desire
John 4
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I AM he.”
Down deep every human being “desires” God – His Presence … but this true desire is often buried under layers of “debris and deception”.
Into this reality Jesus enters with His invitation, “If anyone is thirsty let Him come to Me and drink ..(John7)”
This invitation is to let the “desire” rise to the surface… and then by faith we turn toward Jesus bringing our desire, our hunger, our thirst with us to … the one who said “for I am gentle and humble in heart”…
“Come Hungry…”
God knows how much we need rhythms of worship weekly, daily and as a lifestyle. Our soul needs to be able to count on us to bring it to worship. Our soul desperately needs a safe place to “Come Hungry”… don’t eat before you get there!
Have you eaten?
Jesus,
Jesus I love You!
Jesus I need You!
Jesus I want You! I bring my heart’s desires to You!
I love You! I long for You!
I worship You and You alone! You are Life!
I come to You….. Help me come hungry!