Worship Him! Sermon notes for 13 June 2026
- BARRIE SDA CHURCH
- Jun 13
- 5 min read
Worship Him!
One of the roles of the Holy Spirit as mentioned by Jesus is to guide us to the truth and glorify Him (John 16:12-13). The truth which will be the center of controversy in the last days is the issue of worship. The first message of the three angels in Revelation 14:6-7 is “And I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having everlasting gospel to proclaim unto them that dwell on the earth, and every nation and tribe and tongue and people. Saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship Him who made the heaven and earth, the sea, and the spring of water’”. Typically as Seventh-day Adventists, we quickly refer to interpret “Fear God” as a call to keep the commandments (Ecclesiastes 11:12), give glory to Him as eating healthy food (1 Corinthians 10:31), and worship Him who made the heaven and earth, the sea, and the spring of water as a call to worship God on the right day, the seventh-day Sabbath of creation. I am not saying that as a church we are wrong on our interpretation, but we may miss the main and most important message we should focus on especially in these last days. It is true that the main focus of the controversy in the last day is worship. It is important to point out that the Sabbath day is the memorial of God’s creative power and His role as the Creator, but the emphasis is not just the right day of worship, but the object of worship and the foundation of true worship.
To understand this point, we need to go back to the reason why we worship the Creator. This will bring us to the purpose why God created us in the first place. Apostle John described what he saw regarding the worship in heaven, and what they say in their worship. The four living creatures and the twenty four elders worship the One seated on the throne, the One who lives forever and ever, they fall down and lay down their crowns before His throne saying “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Take note of this very important truth about why we are created. God’s purpose for creating us is to give glory to Him! It gives pleasure to God when we acknowledge Him as our Creator, and such acknowledgment is best expressed in worship. In the surface we may think that God is self-centered in His self-seeking pleasure, but we need to understand this in the broader context of God’s infinite love for us. Our best response to God’s love is to love Him back. Our worship therefore is our expression of our love for Him. He is pleased when our worship is the manifestation of our loving relationship with Him. He is glorified when in our worship we declare the value we place on Him. We are wired for worship, but if our worship is not focused on our Creator, it will be expressed on something else or someone else. There is always the tendency for us to focus on self, our beauty, our intellect, our capabilities, which is proven to be self-destructive as in the experience of Lucifer when the controversy began in heaven and caused his downfall including the angels who sided with him.
Because of the fact that authentic and acceptable worship to God should be in the context of relationship, its foundation therefore is love. When asked by His disciples about the greatest commandment, Jesus responded by saying “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all they strength” (Mark 12:30). Jesus is plainly saying to them, “because of my great love to you, your number one purpose in life is to love me back”. Our love to God is our most appropriate response to all His goodness. This response is our worship of Him. Such worship includes but not limited to our formal congregational gathering consist of singing, praying, and listening to messages from Scriptures. It involves our personal devotion and all the things we do as mentioned by Apostle Paul when he said ““So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Based of what Jesus said in Mark 12:30, there are three most important elements of true worship. Firstly, when He said “love God with all your heart and with all your soul” He is saying, worship Him passionately. It needs to be an expression of our affection to God. Emotion is not everything, but it plays an important role. Our worship should be characterized by excitement, joy, and enthusiasm. Since it springs from a functional and healthy relationship, feelings of fulfillment, sense of satisfaction, environment of celebration must be the atmosphere of worship. Because it is prompted by love it will never be dry and boring.
Secondly, loving God with all our mind means worshiping Him intelligently and thoughtfully. Talking with the Samaritan woman, Jesus said “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Our worship must be guided by the truth of God’s word. Our mind must be focused on Him while we worship. Prophet Isaiah said “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, whose thoughts are fixed on You!” (Isaiah 26:3).
Thirdly, He said, love God will all your strength. He talks about our abilities in our practical actions. We worship in whatever we do. Our actions and behaviors reflect what is in our thoughts and in our hearts. They are outward manifestations of how we value our relationship with our Lord. Apostle Paul emphasized that giving glory to God, worshiping Him can be done in whatever we are doing. He said “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Jesus warned that not all worship is acceptable to Him. In the gospel according to Mark it is stated as He answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written; ‘This people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain…” (Mark 7:6-7). Worship which is founded on a loving relationship with God is useless. Let us examine our responses to the goodness of God. Are we pleasing the Lord with our lives? Is our worship reflective of our love for Him? Will the Lord find pleasure in the way we respond to His loving faithfulness. Can we honestly say that God is pleased seeing that His purpose in creating us is fulfilled?
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