Wired For Worship
"The God Part of the Brain" (Rouge Press, 3rd Edition, 1998). He had a basic premise in his book after much research and experimentation in this line of work that there is a portion of our brain (located near both the pre-frontal lobe and the temporal cortex) that is 'programmed' specifically for worship. He coined the phrase, even as a skeptic, that we are "wired for worship". Everybody has it, man is created to worship, whether they use this part of the brain or not to worship God.
Now when we come to the scriptures we certainly see that as humans it is our divine privilege and duty to worship. The word worship is mentioned over 153 times in the Bible. Its important.
A young boy complained to his father that most of the church hymns were boring to him - too far behind the times, tiresome tunes and meaningless words. His father put an end to the discussion by saying, "If you think you can do better, then why don't you." The boy went to his room and wrote his first hymn. The year was 1690, the teenager was Isaac Watts. "When I survey the wondrous cross" and "Joy to the world" are among almost 350 hymns written by him. Feeling bored? Let the world remember you for 350 years"
Isaac Watts was a boy who hooked into God and made a difference in his world. He was a boy who grew into a man that was wired for worship.
IF WE DON’T WORSHIP GOD WE WILL WORSHIP SOMETHING OR SOMEONE ELSE AS GOD
All Star United: International Anthems For The Human Race (1998)
"Superstar
Yeh its true, yeh its true, It's true - we were born to worship someone; it's true - I do."
Yeh, yeh you are my superstar and they know who you are…
You are the only one by far because you are never changing
Bay city rollers, Abba, Poison
Oh how the mighty have fallen
You are my superstar You are my superstar You are my superstar
Style: Alternative Power Pop
The song was reviewed by David Longenecker
But we weren't made just to worship any someone. We were made to worship The One - the One that made us. Why go through life worshipping people who will fall out of the spotlight, or ideas that will pass on, when we could focus our worship on the one we were wired to worship? Reviewed February 27, 1999 by David Longenecker
In a sermon called HOW TO MAKE WORSHIP WORK FOR YOU- Tapping the Power of God, Dr. Roane Deckert said: If we don't worship the One True God we will worship another unholy trinity: Power, Prestige and Possessions. We are wired for worship.
God recognized that fact (and He should, of course, He is the one who wired us) when He warned the ancient Israelites:
Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.- Deut. 11:16
There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. - Deut. 4:28
I Worship means giving God His worth
Worship is ascribing worth, that it is not an event a ritual or just listening to the preacher or the choir. God wants us to express our love, gratitude, reverence and awe, and do it.
1. Worship says to God "You alone are worthy"
Worship from root word meaning worth, giving us worth-ship, now its more than this and a wonderful and complex study in the Scriptures, but essentially it is saying to our master, "You alone are worthy"
Fritz Kreisler, the master violinist, who discovered that an Englishman had acquired a rare Stradivarius violin. After a long search for the man, he traveled to his home and offered to buy the instrument. However, the Englishman told Kreisler that the instrument was not for sale and sent him away. But Kreisler was not to be discouraged, and decided to go back one more time and ask the man if he could at least see the magnificent instrument. The Englishman respected Kreisler’s talent enough to allow him to come into his home and hold the violin. Kreisler picked up the rare instrument, and with the Englishman’s permission, placed it carefully under his chin and masterfully drew the bow across the strings. As Kreisler played, the Englishman felt as though he heard wind blowing through the trees, the laughter of little children, birds singing, and angels lifting their voices in a chorus of praise. After 20 minutes, Kreisler saw that the Englishman was weeping. He stopped playing and said, “I’m sorry, if I have upset you, but this is such a beautiful instrument. I only wish I could buy it.” The Englishman said, “It’s not for sale, but it is yours. You may have it! It belongs to you. You are the master. You alone are worthy of it.”
II. Worship Means Giving God The Best
Oswald Chambers said it this way, "Worship is giving God the best that He has given you."
Warren Wiersbe has written: “Worship is the believer’s response with all that he is –– mind, emotions, will and body –– to all that God is and says and does.”
Roy T. Edgemon in his book: The Doctrines Baptists Believe writes this:
“True worship includes the total person, both mind and emotion, in a way that calls him or her to praise God for who He is and what He has done and, in so doing, to reach new awarenesses, to learn more of God.”
Its going whole hog for God.
There is an old story of a converted miser who had always been known as an exceedingly stingy individual. After his conversion, one of his neighbors sustained a serious loss. When the former miser heard about it, his immediate reaction was, "Well, they need help and food. I will go to my smoke house and get a ham and take it over to them." But on the way to the smoke house his old nature began to whisper to him, "Why give them a whole ham? Half a ham will be plenty." And he debated this all the way to the smoke house. Then he remembered what he had learned in the presence of God. He remembered that he had resolved then and there that by God's grace he would stand against all the evil qualities of his former life whenever they asserted themselves. The tempter kept whispering, "Give him half a ham," and the old man finally said, "Look Satan, if you don't pipe down, I'll give him the whole smoke house."
2. Worship Is Who You Are
It comes from within, in some ways its hard to describe joining up with the omnipotent God to someone who has not experienced it.
How do you describe going to the moon and doing and seeing the indescribable to someone who is earth bound and never set foot from the earth?
Duke Ellington, the late jazz musician, composer and renowned band leader, was once asked to provide a difinition of rhythm. "If you got it," he replied, "you don't need no definition. And if you don't have it, ain't no definition gonna help."
A young woman, years ago, who sat in church one Sunday and heard her pastor speak about the experience of worshipping and glorifying God. He was eloquent and inspiring and obviously spoke from personal experience, but it was not an experience she had ever had. On her way out of church, she said to him, “What is this glory of religion that you’re talking about? I have gone to church for years, and I have never experienced it. What’s the matter with me that I do not know how to glorify God?”
The pastor told the woman to go by the coal yard on Monday morning and buy a bucket of coal, then to go by the grocery and buy a sack of food. Then she was to put her Bible in her purse and go see the widow Brown, who lived in a tenement on Hampton Lane. The minister instructed the young woman to leave the coal and the groceries, read a Psalm, and say a prayer with widow Brown. Then she was to come see him at the church.
The woman did as she was instructed. When she arrived at the tenement apartment, she knocked on the door. The widow Brown let her in, and she saw two children lying on a cot, their extremities almost purple with the cold. All three pairs of eyes lit up when they saw the coal and the groceries. The woman took out her Bible and read one of the Psalms, but when she tried to pray, the words became choked in her throat. She bolted out of the apartment and nearly ran all the way back to the church. She burst in to the minister’s study and exclaimed, “I found it! I found it! I found the glory of the Lord!” A colleague recently shared a story about a young woman, years ago, who sat in church one Sunday and heard her pastor speak about the experience of worshipping and glorifying God. He was eloquent and inspiring and obviously spoke from personal experience, but it was not an experience she had ever had. On her way out of church, she said to him, “What is this glory of religion that you’re talking about? I have gone to church for years, and I have never experienced it. What’s the matter with me that I do not know how to glorify God?”
The pastor told the woman to go by the coal yard on Monday morning and buy a bucket of coal, then to go by the grocery and buy a sack of food. Then she was to put her Bible in her purse and go see the widow Brown, who lived in a tenement on Hampton Lane. The minister instructed the young woman to leave the coal and the groceries, read a Psalm, and say a prayer with widow Brown. Then she was to come see him at the church.
The woman did as she was instructed. When she arrived at the tenement apartment, she knocked on the door. The widow Brown let her in, and she saw two children lying on a cot, their extremities almost purple with the cold. All three pairs of eyes lit up when they saw the coal and the groceries. The woman took out her Bible and read one of the Psalms, but when she tried to pray, the words became choked in her throat. She bolted out of the apartment and nearly ran all the way back to the church. She burst in to the minister’s study and exclaimed, “I found it! I found it! I found the glory of the Lord!”
The main entrance for most people into a relationship with God and with the church is through worship. Worship is the doorway to discipleship. Worship is our first response to the gift of God’s presence in our lives. As human beings, children of God, his creations, we are wired for worship.
Source Unknown
3. Worship happens despite the circumstances
David is the best example
"You don’t become a worshiper when you become a Christian. You become a worshipper when you determine to worship God regardless of your circumstances."- Steve Ingram
This story comes from a man who learned this all too well.
Back in 1932 I was 32 years old and a fairly new husband. My wife, Nettie, and I were living in a little apartment on Chicago’s Southside. One hot August afternoon I had to go to St. Louis, where I was to be the featured soloist at a large revival meeting. I didn’t want to go. Nettie was in the last month of pregnancy with our first child. But a lot of people were expecting me in St. Louis. I kissed Nettie good-bye, clattered downstairs to our Model A and, in a fresh Lake Michigan breeze, chugged out of Chicago on Route 66. However, outside the city, I discovered that in my anxiety at leaving, I had forgotten my music case. I wheeled around and headed back. I found Nettie sleeping peacefully. I hesitated by her bed; something was strongly telling me to stay. But eager to get on my way, and not wanting to disturb Nettie, I shrugged off the feeling and quietly slipped out of the room with my music. The next night, in the steaming St. Louis heat, the crowd called on me to sing again and again. When I finally sat down, a messenger boy ran up with a Western Union telegram. I ripped open the envelope. Pasted on the yellow sheet were the words: YOUR WIFE JUST DIED. People were happily singing and clapping around me, but I could hardly keep from crying out. I rushed to a phone and called home. All I could hear on the other end was "Nettie is dead. Nettie is dead."
When I got back, I learned that Nettie had given birth to a boy. I swung between grief and joy. Yet that night, the baby died. I buried Nettie and our little both together, in the same casket. Then I fell apart. For days I closeted myself. I felt that God had done me an injustice. I didn’t want to serve Him any more or write gospel songs. I just wanted to go back to that jazz world I once knew so well. But then, as I hunched alone in that dark apartment those first sad days, I thought back to the afternoon I went to St. Louis. Something kept telling me to stay with Nettie. Was that something God? Oh, if I had paid more attention to Him that day, I would have stayed and been with Nettie when she died. From that moment on I vowed to listen more closely to Him. But still I was lost in grief.
Everyone was kind to me, especially a friend, Professor Fry, who seemed to know what I needed. On the following Saturday evening he took me up to Malone’s Poro College, a neighborhood music school. It was quiet; the late evening sun crept through the curtained windows. I sat down at the piano, and my hands began to browse over the keys. Something happened to me then. I felt at peace. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody, one into my head-they just seemed to fall into place:
Precious Lord, take my hand,
lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn,
Through the storm, through the night
lead me on to the light,
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.
As the Lord gave me these words and melody, He also healed my spirit. I learned that when we are in our deepest grief, when we feel farthest from God, this is when He is closest, and when we are most open to His restoring power. And so I go on living for God willingly and joyfully, until that day comes when He will take me and gently lead me home.
("The Birth of "Precious Lord" by Tommy A. Dorsey, GUIDEPOST)
5. Worship Is Not Selfish
It gives God the time.
Andrew Peyton Thomas writes in the Wall Street Journal (Aug. 9, 1995). "If the source of America's social disintegration is to be pinpointed so that it might be remedied, honesty compels us not to neglect this issue [selfishness].... Americans are glorifying extreme individualism beyond healthy limits, and beyond anything ever experienced by another national culture."
We live in an age bent on self pleasure rather than God's pleasure.
Amy Carmichael writes that "letting Adoration and Worship slip into second place is responsible for lack of spiritual depth and power. It is the reason why we so often run dry." - Christianity Today-Vol. 39, #13.+
Worship gives God His time that He has given us to use for Him anyway. Think about this one. He demands our worship of Him from the time He has given us anyway. Start using your time, or should I say His time for His service and purposes that He has called us all to and that is to worship Him. We're wired to worship, its what and how we worship that counts in life.
God "inhabits the praises of His people". Start praying like you have never prayed before. We will never regret it.
