Focus in Worship

Introduction

It is a blessed day that we are gathered together to worship together today. We welcome all who are here. Welcome our visitors who are traveling from out of town. Thankful that you have come to worship with us today. We do have the gospel meeting coming up that has already been announced several times with Gary Sandusky, March 20th through 23rd. And I wanted to make sure that everybody knows how to pronounce his name because I know him, and it’s not Jerry. It’s Gary. And it looks like Jerry, but it’s Gary. So we’re looking forward to that gospel meeting and hope that all who are members here will plan to be here that week and begin making preparations for that now. And to anticipate it with great excitement.

Because I I want to tell you something. There’s a time in my life when I considered moving to Indiana, moving to Madison, Indiana, where Gary preaches, just so I could hear him preach. That’s how much I respect this man and this preacher. And he is powerful and he is humble. And of course, the power is in the Lord and in the gospel. But uh, I really want to encourage everyone to make plans to be here to hear Gary Sandusky. Well, today is a very, very, very special day. Now you might be saying, Well, I am I missing something. I mean, I know last Sunday was Valentine’s Day. What’s going on today? Well, simply the fact that it’s the first day of the week. And it’s the Lord’s day.

It’s the day that Christ raised from the dead, and it’s the day that we worship God together. It’s a day that we come before him and we fall down before our God’s feet and the feet of his Son, Jesus Christ, and we give him our very best in worship and adoration of their great and holy names. And therefore, if today is so special, we ought to focus in our worship. You know, it’s so easy to lose focus on what we’re doing and lose focus of why we’re doing it. And if we would simply remember that worship is meant to be centered wholly and completely on God and his son, and that therefore we ought to worship him with all of our heart and soul, and that we ought to ignore and eliminate distractions.

1. God Is the Center of Our Worship

Then what we would do here would be all the more meaningful. And that’s pretty much an outline of what I’m going to be talking to you about today. You see, God is the center of our worship. If you will be turning to Revelation chapter 4, and as you’re turning there, I want to ask you to think about after Jesus raised from the dead and was alive for 40 days and ascended into the skies as the disciples watched. He ascends into heaven. He disappears behind a cloud.

Well, we get an insight into what happened in heaven when Jesus arrived. And that’s what we see in Revelation 4 and 5, particularly Revelation 5. Now, this is a vision that John the Apostle had. So these things are symbolic. He wasn’t literally in heaven. He wasn’t literally seeing these the actual event of Jesus arriving there in heaven, but this was something that he saw by way of vision, and these things are symbolic. But he sees God on his throne, and he’s glorious and radiant, and surrounding him there’s a rainbow, and from the throne come forth flashes of light and thunder. And it’s a magnificent scene. And there are these 24 elders on their thrones, and these four living creatures. And we begin reading there in chapter 4 and in verse 8.

And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within, and day and night they do not cease to say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come. And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before him who sits on the throne and will worship him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.

And as we continue in chapter 5, we see that in the hand of God there is this scroll that is sealed with seven seals, and this scroll needs to be opened. And there’s no one found worthy to open the scroll, to unlock the seals or to break the seals. And so there is mourning in heaven, and there is mourning there. John is sad, but then he sees this lamb. And this is symbolic. This lamb that had been slain. But he was standing there alive. That’s Jesus, who, though he died on the cross, had risen from the dead, and now he’s appearing in heaven before God, and he takes the scroll because he’s worthy. And we begin reading in chapter 5 and in verse 8, where it says, When he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals. For you were slain and purchased for God with your tongue, men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to our God, and they will reign upon the earth. Verse 11. Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. Just pause there for a moment. Maybe you’ve been in a stadium full of thousands of people, maybe as many as a hundred thousand people.

And maybe that was a very moving and exciting experience. I want to tell you that doesn’t hold a candle to what we read here. This is an innumerable host of these spirit beings that are gathered before God. Can you imagine being in that company? Can you imagine worshiping with unison of heart in that company in heaven before God’s very throne. Verse 13 continues, and every every created thing which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them I heard saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. And the four living creatures kept saying, Amen. And the elders fell down and worshipped.

I read this to give us all a sense of what it would be like to worship God in heaven. At his very throne. To worship before the Lamb. I mean, do you think that that was a worship that was distracted? Do you think that was a worship that wasn’t focused solely upon God? Well, we know that it was a worship focused solely on God. And the truth is, though we are not in the immediate presence of God, we are in God’s presence. I’m reminded of the tabernacle, the fact that the tabernacle in the time of Moses was a representative of God’s presence, but it did not literally contain God. Even the temple when it was built, Solomon prayed, Behold, heaven and the heavens of heavens cannot contain you.

How much less this temple which I have built? And so we are in the presence of God, but in a secondary sense, as all Christians all over the world worshiping God today are in his presence. But we are not in his immediate presence because he’s in heaven and we’re down here on earth. Nevertheless, we are in his presence. We have come before him, as Psalm 100 makes the point, and we’ll look at that in a little while. And just think of God being in our very presence. What if he were here right before you and you could see him on his throne? And you could see the Lamb, you could see Jesus Christ at his right hand, and he were watching everything that all of us were doing.

How intently would we worship? How much would our worship center around God if that were the case? A hundred percent. That’s how much. And so God is to be the center of our worship. Now we see also the presence of God among men, however, on earth in Exodus chapters 19 and 20. So if you want to turn your Bibles there, we go all the way from the last book in the Bible to the second book in the Bible. Moses, through the power of God, had led the children of Israel out of Egypt. And they come down to Mount Sinai. And that’s where God is going to make a covenant with the people. And he tells Moses, I’m going to come, and on the third day, I’m going to come down on Mount Sinai.

So make sure the people get ready. Consecrate them. Have them wash their clothes. The men are not to come close to the near the women or not to touch any woman. So there is this preparation. Now let me just make a side point. When we know that we are going to be coming to meet God, which we do every first day of the week, there should be an anticipation about that. There should be a preparation about that. When our kids say, Oh, do we have to go to church tomorrow? We say, no, we want to. We get to go and worship our mighty Creator and His Son. And we prepare. You know, maybe it’s not the best idea to stay up till two in the morning, you know, hanging out with your friends.

Because are you really going to be rested to give the Lord your best on Sunday? Maybe we should really give thought to what we’re going to wear. Because aren’t we in the presence of God? So there are a lot of ways. Shouldn’t we be prepared with our Bible lessons? You know, there is a preparation that needs to be had if we’re going to meet God. It’s a big deal. So they were going to meet with God. And there was a preparation made. And in verses 16 through 18, we read about how there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain. And the people were so afraid. I just want you to think about this for a minute. I mean, here we live in South Florida, and we we really know what it’s like to have thunderstorms.

Isn’t it awesome to see powerful lightning and to hear that rumbling thunder that just almost shakes you to your core? I cannot experience that without thinking, my God is awesome. He is mighty. He is powerful. So imagine being here. I want you to be an Israelite for a minute. And be at the foot of Sinai and see the lightning and hear the thunder and see the mountain filled with smoke. And we begin reading in verse 18 of Exodus 19. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. And its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. Imagine that. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him with thunder.

I have never noticed that till I prepared for this lesson. God answered him with thunder. Well, we’re going to skip ahead to chapter 20 after the giving of the Ten Commandments. Then we begin reading in verse 18: all the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, speak to us yourself, and we will listen, but let not God speak to us, for we will, or we will die.

And it is a matter that it demands our full attention and reverence and respect. To be in the presence of God is not a casual matter. But we make it a casual matter. And maybe we act casually, and maybe we carry on and chit-chat in the middle of services when we ought to be wholly focused on the Lord. I guarantee you that wasn’t going on here. I guarantee you it wasn’t casual in their mind. They were standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, and they knew that God was there.

You see, worship is entering God’s territory. Psalm 100. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth. Come before him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God. It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. And then verse 4, which is key to our lesson, says, Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Verse 5 goes on, for the Lord is good. His loving kindness is everlasting, and his faithfulness endures to all generations. The truth is, brethren, when we come before the Lord, yes, it is a fearful thing, but it’s also a joyful thing. It’s a thing that should fill our hearts with gratitude and privilege and honor that we get to come before the Lord.

He allows us this honor of being able to do this. And we enter His gates and His courts. Now, to the Jews, that had a special meaning because three times a year the males were required to go and to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. And there was a literal entering through the gates and entering into the courts. We don’t have a temple today, but brethren, we are the temple of God. And whether we’re worshiping in this building or we’re out under a tree or wherever Christians may be, and God is there, we are in the presence of God. We have entered his gates, and his courts is his territory. We need to act like it. It’s sober. It’s serious. It’s not casual. Enter his gates with thanksgiving.

And his courts with praise. Now listen. I want to say this, I want to say this nicely. I want us to all realize that while we’re gathered here for these three hours, this is all devoted to the Lord. The emphasis is not us, but it’s the Lord. We’ll have time for us before and after. Whether we’re in this auditorium or whether you might be hearing through the intercom in some other part of the building, wherever we are.

2. Fully Focus Our Mind and Our Heart

And the focus is to be centered upon God and His Son, Jesus Christ. If that’s the case, then we need to fully focus our mind and our heart. I love the 103rd Psalm in verse 1, which says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. All that I’ve got. All I can must. I know that’s hard to do for three hours straight. Our backs start hurting. We start maybe getting tired. You have to sit and listen to me. I apologize. All that is within me, bless his holy name. Psalm 11 and verse 1, praise the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. Not with half of my heart, not with 75% of my heart or 99% of my heart, but my whole heart.

We just pour it out and we are engulfed in our worship. Now that’s easier said than done. Because we’re human and we get distracted. But we have to strive for this. And I believe that every aspect of our worship requires inward focus. I don’t believe that there’s any part of our gathering here where we can kind of log out and go over here in our mind to wherever, and maybe come back and check in and then go back out. We have to strive to stay focused the whole time.

Shortly afterwards, we have the people making a request to Ezra, who is the one who led the second return from the captivity. Verse 1, and all the people gathered as one man at the square which is in front of the water gate. And they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. They wanted this. They made this request. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the square, which was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday. Another version says, I think, from dawn until noon. In the presence of men and women, those who could understand, and all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

You mean to tell me that they stood there for maybe six hours at least, listening to the reading of the book of the law, which contains a lot of stuff that might not be as exciting as we might like. Genealogies, ceremonies, rules. A lot of those things are in there. And they wanted this. Could that happen in today’s culture? I don’t really know if it could. Because we all have ADD. I mean, let’s just face it, we can’t watch a 40 minute television program with it, at least without some commercials, right? So that we don’t have to focus the whole time. We live in that kind of a culture. But here they stood for perhaps six hours listening to the reading of the book of the law.

It wasn’t listening to stories or any some exciting set of sermons, even. It was just the reading of the law, which, if you love it, it is exciting. And they loved it. In this case. And that’s a beautiful thing. So when we’re listening to sermons and in Bible classes, we need to focus our heart and mind. How about in our singing? Of course, in our singing, we are making melody with the heart. I’m afraid sometimes that I am making melody with my voice, but my heart isn’t engaged. And I have to constantly keep check on that. Don’t you? We know the words to these songs. We’ve memorized a lot of them, or most of them, perhaps, and so you’re singing, and you’re not really thinking about the words you’re saying.

You may not even know what hallelujah means. This is so important that we know what we’re singing, that we think and engage our minds. Or what about when we’re praying? I think that the warning that Jesus gave to Peter, James, and John and Gethsemane is fitting for us as well. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And it is. I mean, let’s just be honest. Flesh is weak. We’re tired. We get hungry. The prayer is being prayed, and our thoughts may wander to and fro. But we need to realize that the prayer that’s being led only becomes your prayer if you internalize it. You have to pray that prayer as you hear those words. Or else you’re doing nothing but closing your eyes. That’s an empty action.

An empty exercise. If you’re doing it that way. What about in the Lord’s Supper? In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, a well-known passage about the Lord’s Supper, about abuses of the Lord’s Supper. Paul is addressing here the problem among these Christians that they were using the Lord’s Supper as a common meal. I mean, they were using it to just fill their tummies, and they weren’t at all thinking about why they were doing this. And so Paul is very clear with them in verses 23, 24, and 25, that the Lord has instituted this memorial meal. It’s not meant to be a common meal, it’s a memorial. This do in remembrance of me. And in verse 26, he says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

He doesn’t say, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you eat this bread and drink the cup. There, I ate the bread and drank the cup. I did it. No, he says you’re proclaiming the Lord’s death. There’s a purpose that you have to engage your mind and heart in. And he goes on to say, therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. What does it mean to do it in an unworthy manner? It means not to engage your mind and not to do it with the right purpose and intent. And so that’s why he says in verse 28, but a man must examine himself, and in so doing, he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For he who eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. This self-examination is something that we should all do in the Lord’s Supper and really in any part of our worship to keep a check on ourselves. Am I doing this for the right reason? Am I engaging my heart and mind fully in what I’m do so cheerfully, and that at least suggests that we have our heart involved. 2 Corinthians 9 talks about. I love when we sing God is so good when we’re giving, because those are the kinds of thoughts that need to be coursing through our minds as we are giving back to the Lord as He has blessed us.

In our worship before God, I think Habakkuk 2 and verse 20 can be applied. That verse which says, But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him. In the context, the point is the idols are not real. But the Lord is real.

3. Eliminate and Ignore Distractions

And we can apply that to our worship that here we are in his gates and in his courts, he’s in his holy temple. Let us keep silence before him with reverent awe, realizing who we’re standing before, the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. In order to have this focus, brethren, we’re going to have to eliminate and ignore distractions. Now let’s just kind of get practical for a couple of minutes in closing here. We have many distractions today. A lot of distractions they didn’t have in the first century. A lot of distractions they didn’t have 20 years ago. We all have an electronic device now. Just about all of us. And those can be a blessing. But you know what? They also have the internet and angry birds and a lot of other things.

And can be a distraction if we’re not careful. We have all sorts of technology. We’ve got PowerPoint. That’s useful. We’ve got the advancing of the song slides as we’re singing. Useful. But some might be distracted and enamored with those things to the point that they’re not engaging really in what’s important. So we need to always keep our hearts focused on what’s important without distraction. Some distractions are unpreventable. I remember I was preaching in Monticella, Florida. And that’s how you say it if you live there. It’s not Monticello, it’s Monticella. And in walks this man, small little country church, and he’s kind of obviously intoxicated somehow. And he kind of comes up and sits down on the front. And I just kind of keep preaching. And I’m preaching about the United Kingdom.

And I’m talking about Solomon and where God in 1 Kings 3 says, ask for whatever you want. And I asked the congregation, what would you say if God asked you that question? And this man answered. Out loud. And I don’t remember exactly what he said, although I do I did have it recorded. And he was kind of slurring and then he stood up, and I just stopped preaching. And he turns around right up here in the front. And he just starts talking to everybody. Angrily. Shouting. And condemning us. And then he keeps preaching and condemning until he makes his exit out the back door. And as soon as he left, I said, okay. And I kept right on preaching. I didn’t mention it. I just kept right on going.

Sometimes there are distractions that will pull our minds away, but what we do is we get our minds right back on track. You might be taking the Lord’s Supper and have thoughts that pull your mind away from what you were doing. I was really thinking, as we were taking the Lord’s Supper, I was noticing how much I had the tendency for my mind to drift, and I had to work to focus my mind in. Do you have to do that sometimes? If you get distracted, just quickly refocus on the worship. Now, some distractions can be prevented. Some of them occur because maybe we’re being careless. Maybe we’re being careless about the people around us or the people next to us. And I’m not I’m not wanting to pinpoint something.

Conclusion

I just want us all to think. What is it maybe that we are personally distracted by? I could tell you the things that I allow to distract me. I love little children’s faces. It’s so easy maybe for me to just let that distract me. Do you have things that distract you? Don’t let them. Don’t let them. Maybe do you do things that you don’t realize maybe you’re doing that might cause somebody else to be distracted or you to be distracted. We need to work to eliminate those. And to realize that everything we’re doing is centered fully and completely upon our God. Therefore, we need to focus the heart and the mind, and we need to eliminate and ignore distractions. All of this should really bring us to the point that we could say, as the psalmist said in Psalm 11 and verse 1, praise the Lord.

I will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. Let us think towards this. We don’t have much worship left today, so it’s not going to be hard for you to do this today. But this is something I want us to remember from now on, the best that we can. To praise the Lord with our whole heart in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. Would you bow your head with me in a word of prayer? Our Father, our God, and our Savior. We bow before your throne. We do not count ourselves worthy of even being thought of by you. But we know that you know every thought in our minds, you know every hair on our heads, you know every action we’ve ever taken, and you care about us deeply.

And you’re watching as we worship. And Father, we pray that our worship would be a sweet and smelling aroma before you. And that we would give you the proper respect, reverence, and adoration that only you and your son deserve. Forgive us wherein we might have done this improperly. Forgive me. And help us, Father, to have greater reverence and greater respect in our worship. It is through your Son that we pray. Amen.

Take your song books. Turn to the song that has been selected. I say that by habit, by the way. But you can use your songbooks. If you’re not a Christian, you need to be. If you’re old enough and mature enough to be accountable before the Lord, then you need to make that step and make that change in your life. To think about turning to the Lord. First, you’ve got to believe in Him. You’ve got to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. You’ve got to believe in God, believe that the Bible is inspired by Him and that there is a heaven and that there is a hell. And having believed, you want to confess that belief, turning away from your sin, repenting of the life that you’ve lived in wickedness and turn fully to the Lord, being baptized.

And in that baptism, making connection with the blood of Christ, you can rise from that water to walk in a new life. If you’re not a Christian, you need to become one today. We invite you to come as we stand and sing the song of invitation.