The Way of a Worshiper: A Saddleback Church Small Group Study

 With all of my heart.

I will praise you with all of my strength.

I will. Um, All of my days,

I will follow

all of are you looking for God? Are you wanting a deeper and more meaningful connection with him? Do you ever wonder if he even knows your name? The pursuit of God is a chase of a lifetime. In fact, it's been going on since the day you were born. The question is, have you been the hunter or the pre

The way of a worshiper is a way of. It's about discovering the secret to friendship with God, and it's not so much about doing something, it's more about being someone, not just doing worship, but being a worshiper. The way of a worshiper is best summarized in Romans 12, one and two, where the Bible says, Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifice.

Holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship and don't 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 he good, pleasing, and perfect? Will you see everybody worships something because worship was God's.

He wired it into our dna. We're all worshipers, and you can tell what a person worships by the way he lives his life. Now, some people worship idols and some people worship themselves. Some people worship money or possessions. Some guys worship their cars. Some teenagers worship rock stars. Of course, the problem there is that cars break down and so do some rock stars for that.

But I want to talk about worshiping the living God. And before we head down that path, we should probably start with a definition. What, What is worship? What does worship mean? You see, worship is a lot more than just singing songs. It's more than just religious activities. It's much, much bigger than that.

Our word for worship comes from an old English word, which is worth Skype or worth ship, and it means to attribute or to. Worth. So that leads us then to a question, because when we're worshiping God, we are declaring his worth. So here's the question. What is God worth? What is God worth? What is God worth to you?

I think you'll find that that question can never be fully answered because the discovery of God's worth is both endless and endlessly rewarding, and you. God shaped void in our hearts that we hear so much about. I don't think that void can ever be completely filled because God always seems to make more room for himself.

It's like every encounter you have with him leaves you wanting more, but you gotta start somewhere. So where does the discovery start? I believe that the discovery of God's worth to us starts with a discovery of our worth to God because the Bible. We love him because he first loved us. You see, God initiates everything.

God is always previous. He's always ahead of us. Even in our relationship with him, you have to remember that when Adam and Eve were hiding from God in the Garden of Eden because of their sin, Adam didn't go looking for God. God came looking for Adam, calling him out of his hiding place and calling him into a relat.

And if God had not come looking for Adam, if God had not come looking for us, our worship would be helpless. So our discovery of God's worth begins by discovering our worth to him. We have to start where our passage in Romans 12 starts looking at ourselves through God's eyes, looking at ourself in view of God's mercy.

But you have to say, Why would God even care about us? Why would God want our worship? He's the creator of the universe. It's not like he doesn't have anything else to think about. Why would God want our worship? The psalmist said, When I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, what is man that you're mindful of him?

I mean, think about that. Why would God love? It just doesn't make any sense. Well, you have to remember that love is not just what God does. Love is who God is. It's his nature. It's his character. The Bible says that God is love, and regardless of our failures, regardless of anything we've done, God loves us and he loves you more than you could ever.

Now there's a story Jesus told in Luke chapter 15. It's commonly referred to as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It's a story about a young guy who went to his father one day and he said, I want my inheritance. It's basically what he's saying is, I wish you were dead. I want everything that's coming to me and I want it right now.

Amazingly, the father gives him what he asked for, and shortly after that, this guy left home took everything he had and he left home. It says he went off to a distant country and he squandered all that he had on wild living and throwing parties. Well, after he had run outta money and run outta luck, he wound up feeding pigs for a farmer.

And the Bible says that when he finally came to his census, he said to himself, You know, the servants in my father's house have it better off than I do. Maybe I just better go back to my dad and tell him, Look, I'm, I've sinned against heaven and against you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

Can I at least be a servant in your house? And so he had it off for home and the Bible says that while he was still a long way off his father, And he ran to him and threw his arms around him and kissed him and he said, My son, who is dead has now come home. And he put shoes on his feet and a robe on his back and a ring on his finger.

He gave him back his dignity and his identity and his authority. Now here's the interesting to thing to me about this story is that nowhere in the story does Jesus ever say that this young guy was a. And I've found that there's a common misunderstanding of that word prodigal. Most people think prodigal means lost or, or wayward or rebellious.

And you'll hear people say, you know, pray for my son or my daughter to, he's, he's a prodigal. Well, but that's not what the word prodigal means. What prodigal means is extravagantly generous or lavishly wasteful, extravagantly generous or lavishly waste. . So with the true meaning of prodigal in mind, think back on the story.

Who is the prodigal in the story? It's not the kid. It's not the boy. He's just a kid making some dumb mistakes. The prodigal is the father because the father is extravagantly generous with his son. The father is lavishing his love on this undeserving boy. The father is the prodigal and so is our father.

He lavishes his love on us even though we don't deserve it. And you know, we can think of a million reasons why we shouldn't be able to come home. We can think of a million reasons of how we failed our father and brought shame to his name, and we think there's no way that I could be his son. Maybe I can just be a servant.

But the love of our father is such that he welcomes. He embraces us. He forgives us. You know, there's nothing you can tell God about yourself that he doesn't already know. You just gotta come to your senses and come back to the Father, and he restores to you then your dignity and your authority and your identity.

The Father is the prodigal ago, and so is our father, and that's why the Bible says how great is the love? The father has lavished on. That we should be called children of God and that is what we are.

I gotta tell you about something I saw just a few years ago. It was the most compelling, powerful picture of the love of the father that I've ever seen. I was speaking at a men's conference for a ministry called Promise Keepers, and we were gathered in an arena in Denver, Colorado for 16,000 guys there.

And on Friday night, as the program was starting and we began with worship, I came out from behind the stage to see how the men were engaging with the music and if they were singing, And just to kind of blend in with the crowd and right in the front row, there was a man in, I guess his early fifties and seated right next to him was his teenage son in a wheelchair.

And it was dreadfully obvious at first glance that this boy was severely handicapped while I found out later that the boy had broken his neck playing football in. He was paralyzed. Now from the neck down, he could no longer see, and he couldn't speak anymore. But as the music started, 16,000 men stood up out of their chairs and started singing all hail to Power, Jesus name.

And this father, he stood up and he turned to his son. He put his hands underneath his arms and he picked him up out of his chair and he held him in a bear. Her face is about six inches apart. And then he started to sing to him and he looked at his son and he sang the song to him. Now, the boy couldn't see his dad's face, but he could hear his voice and he could feel his touch.

And as his father stood there holding him singing to him, the boy with incredible effort was able to get just his right arm up around his dad's. His left arm just hung limp at his side, but he could get his right arm up around his dad's neck. And there they stood for 10 minutes with this father singing to this boy.

And as I watched this vision in front of me, I remembered these words from scripture that I had learned as a boy in the book of Zephaniah. In the Old Testament, it says, the Lord your God is. He is mighty to save. He takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love and rejoice over you with singing.

What I saw that night was the word in flesh because I saw a father who was rejoicing over his son, was singing, taking great delight in him, quieting him with his. I saw Grace embracing brokenness. I saw joy triumphing over over tragedy. You know, there was nothing that that boy could do to earn his dad's love.

There was nothing he could do to make his father proud of him. This boy was broken and helpless, and yet he was absolutely beautiful in his father's eyes and in that father's face, I saw the love and pride of our Heavenly Father who loves us regardless of our broken. In spite of our brokenness, not because there's anything we can do to earn his favors love.

He just loves us because of who we are. His sons and his daughters in whom he takes great to like and he rejoices over us with singing.

So what do you do with a love like that? How do you respond to that kind of extravagant love and grace and mercy? Well, you can respond with disbelief or you can respond with gratitude. You can reject it and walk away. You can surrender your life to the father's embrace and put your arm around his neck and let him sing over you, and then add your voice to the song and live your life as an act of worship to God, Not out of a sense of obligation or duty, trying to pay him back, but as a response of love and gratitude for such an amazing love that God has shown.

So we know what we're worth to God. We're worth the life of his son. Jesus died for us as humans. He didn't come to die for animals or even to save the fallen angels. He died for us and we are the only ones who worship God. From Redeemed hearts so we know what we are worth to our prodigal father, the question is, what is the father worth to you?

Oh, I will give you all my, and dial again through all my you alone. Long to worship. Youll alone are worthy of my praise. I'll give you all my, I'll give you my.