RH:49 What Does it Mean to Worship God?

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Reasoned Hope Podcast. In this podcast, we explore the intellectual credibility

[00:00:10] of the Christian faith. We seek to show how the central hope found in Jesus Christ is not

[00:00:16] only rational, but that the Christian worldview makes sense of our experience, our deepest

[00:00:22] longings and our intuitions about the world. Thanks for listening, and we hope today's

[00:00:27] episode is both encouraging and challenging to you, whether you are a believer or a

[00:00:32] skeptic.

[00:00:34] Welcome to today's episode of the Reasoned Hope Podcast. In this podcast, we investigate

[00:00:45] the intellectual credibility of the Christian faith. And part of what this involves

[00:00:50] is also clarifying aspects of Christian belief, practice or doctrine or things of the

[00:00:57] Bible that are commonly misunderstood. And today's episode, we're going to be looking

[00:01:03] at what it means to worship God and the whole idea of God commanding human beings to worship

[00:01:11] Him and how this is a very misunderstood idea. And it can raise questions in people's

[00:01:18] minds. I think good questions that get us thinking deeper about what's involved in this

[00:01:24] claim or this idea that Christians or human beings in general from the Bible's perspective

[00:01:31] should be worshiping God. What does this mean? And I'll just start by looking at a couple

[00:01:38] passages from the Bible that clarify, or that bring this to the surface, this idea that

[00:01:45] God commands us to worship Him and to praise Him. So let me start by just looking at a few

[00:01:51] passages and then go a little deeper into why this may create a problem for some people

[00:01:57] when they're reading the Bible. For example, Psalm 673 says, let the people's praise you

[00:02:03] God, let all the people's praise you. And this language of praising God and this exhortation

[00:02:11] for human beings to worship and praise God is all over the Psalms. And mainly this

[00:02:19] is focused upon the nation of Israel as the Psalms were written by Jews that were written

[00:02:24] by Israelites, a part of the nation of Israel. And they were used in the temple worship of Israel.

[00:02:31] And so the context of this command and this idea that people should praise God flows out

[00:02:38] of that. But in the Psalms, as we see, this command or this idea that people should worship God

[00:02:46] is not just limited to the nation of Israel because to the Jews, Yahweh was God of the entire

[00:02:52] world. He wasn't just limited to the nation of Israel. So we'll start to see this more. If we go

[00:03:01] to Psalm 99 verses 1 through 3, it says this, the Lord reigns, let the people's tremble. He is

[00:03:09] enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth quake. The Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted above

[00:03:16] all the peoples. Let them praise your great and all inspiring name. He is holy. So there,

[00:03:25] there's a lot of mention about the reign of God and how God's reign is supposed to instill a

[00:03:31] kind of fear and awe in human beings that metaphor that image of the earth quaking and God's greatness

[00:03:39] and how he's exalted above all the peoples, all the nations that there's no one equal to God.

[00:03:47] And then it says let them praise your great and all inspiring name. So there's that idea that

[00:03:54] praise is something that human beings should do in response to God. And at the very least,

[00:04:01] praise is worshiping God. And then that section of Psalm 99 ends by saying he is holy.

[00:04:10] If we go to Psalm 113, 1 through 3, it says,

[00:04:13] Hallelujah! Give praise, servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Let the name of the

[00:04:20] Lord be blessed, both now and forever. From the rising of the sun to its setting, let the name of

[00:04:26] the Lord be praised. There again, there's the idea of praising God that the servants of God are

[00:04:35] to be praising Him and that His name is great, that He deserves to be praised and honored.

[00:04:41] If we go to Exodus 22 through 3, which is this is the section in the Old Testament where God is

[00:04:47] giving the Ten Commandments to the Nation of Israel. And right at the beginning, He says this,

[00:04:53] I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

[00:04:59] Do not have other gods besides me. So there's this command to have exclusive worship to God

[00:05:08] that the Israelites, the Jews, they were not to have any other God before Yahweh.

[00:05:15] And the other nation surrounding Israel worshipped all kinds of gods. And it was even common for

[00:05:21] other nations to worship many gods. And yet the Jews are told by Yahweh, you are to only worship

[00:05:28] me. You're not to have any other gods before me. And so this raises the question, why is that

[00:05:34] the case? Why is there such exclusive devotion and worship reserved for God, for Yahweh, over against

[00:05:44] anything or anyone else? And it's connected to the idea of praising God and worshiping God

[00:05:51] because there's an exclusive nature about this command and activity. One more passage we'll look at

[00:05:59] is Psalm 50 verse 23, and it says, whoever offers a Thanksgiving sacrifice honors me. And whoever

[00:06:08] orders his conduct, I will show him the salvation of God. So again you have to understand that is coming

[00:06:15] from the like the temple worship of the nation of Israel. So the idea of sacrifices, thanks giving

[00:06:22] sacrifice, that was a specific type of sacrifice in the Old Testament. And the basic point there is

[00:06:28] that God is saying whoever offers this kind of sacrifice to me, the Thanksgiving sacrifice honors

[00:06:35] me. And the Jews had a whole sacrificial system in their temple worship that had many,

[00:06:43] many purposes to it and was instituted by God. But at the very least what we see here despite all

[00:06:50] the other things that could be said about that in Psalm 50 23, the idea is that God is honored

[00:06:57] by this specific sacrifice. So again that raises the question, God wants honor from people he wants

[00:07:04] worship, he wants exclusive devotion. And people should respond to him in a particular way with all

[00:07:12] and with a kind of fear and reverence and even trembling. And there's the mention that God is

[00:07:18] holy as we saw in Psalm 99. So many more passages could be cited but that just gives you a sense of what

[00:07:27] the Bible, how it speaks about the worship and devotion to God that he commands people to have.

[00:07:36] Specifically the nation of Israel in the time of the Old Testament. But if you read throughout

[00:07:41] the Bible, you see that this command, this idea that human beings should worship God is something

[00:07:46] that God desires and it's something that we should do. And so for I think for most Christians

[00:07:55] this may not be an issue at all for them because if you've grown up in church especially

[00:08:01] or if you've been reading the Bible for a while, you're just going to get used to the idea that

[00:08:09] Christians are supposed to worship God and it's not going to really strike you as problematic

[00:08:15] and it may not raise any questions for you. And it may even seem to make perfect sense.

[00:08:21] And I think it certainly does and I'll explain why I think that is. But to pause there,

[00:08:27] I just want to say that other people, they may find this idea off-putting especially people who are

[00:08:34] sort of outside of Christianity and maybe they haven't read the Bible much or maybe they have

[00:08:40] and it's raised a lot of questions for them. And maybe this is one of those issues, one of those

[00:08:46] questions that they've had. So some wonder if this idea of worshipping and praising God makes God

[00:08:55] arrogant or does it make God self-consumed? Or does it even make God needy? Does he need the

[00:09:03] worship and the adoration of human beings for some reason? Is that why he created human beings to

[00:09:10] begin with because he needed something? He needed to be told how great he was. He needed to be

[00:09:16] worship needed to be praised. Is that what's going on here? And so those are the sorts of questions

[00:09:23] that passages like this may raise for some people. Now I think the reason that people may find

[00:09:31] that off-putting is that if you think about it just from a human level, it would certainly be

[00:09:37] off-putting if a person demanded that others praise them and honor them. So even when people

[00:09:44] speak about themselves often to others or if they constantly boast in their own accomplishments,

[00:09:51] this certainly rubs us the wrong way. And the reason is because it does reveal an inflated sense of

[00:09:59] self and self-focused. If you're always going around telling other people how great you are

[00:10:05] and all the great things that you've done, that does reveal a problem. It reveals that

[00:10:12] you're very self-focused and you think very highly of yourself and you want everyone else to

[00:10:19] know it because you want them to acknowledge that about you and agree with you on it.

[00:10:25] And so the question is, does the Bible's emphasis on praising God amount to the same type of

[00:10:32] thing? Or is there anything distinctive about it? Is it different in any way? And that's the question

[00:10:42] that I want to delve into in today's episode. And so today's episode is really clarifying a core aspect

[00:10:50] of the Bible's teaching about God and what it means to live the Christian life.

[00:10:56] Praising and worshiping God is arguably it's the core of the Christian life because it is a

[00:11:04] response to God and it's the right response to God. So let's dive a little deeper into looking at

[00:11:12] these questions and clarifying this. I think a very helpful discussion of this issue is found

[00:11:19] in the writings of C.S. Lewis. So he wrote a book called Reflections on the Psalms and it's basically

[00:11:28] it's basically just him going through writing about things that the Psalms have raised in his

[00:11:34] own mind, questions that reading through the Psalms has raised for him and he's thinking through them

[00:11:41] and he's wrestling with them and he's sharing kind of his journey through that. And he is a chapter

[00:11:47] in that book Reflections on the Psalms called a word about praising and he looks at this specific

[00:11:54] issue and his discussion is very insightful and very helpful to think through this. So I'm just

[00:12:01] going to read a quote from that chapter in the book where he says this quote,

[00:12:08] when I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been given to

[00:12:15] I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should

[00:12:23] praise God. Still more in the suggestion that God himself demanded it. We all despise the man who

[00:12:31] demands continued assurance of his own virtue, intelligence or delightfulness. We despise still more

[00:12:38] the crowd of people round every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity who gratify that

[00:12:45] demand. Thus a picture at once ludicrous and horrible both of God and of his worshipers threatened

[00:12:54] to appear in my mind. In quote so in his framing of this issue, CS Lewis raises similar concerns about

[00:13:06] what the biblical emphasis on praising and worshiping God means for God himself as well as those

[00:13:13] who worship him. Now in thinking through this you can see from that quote, Lewis starts kind of

[00:13:20] thinking at this from the level of the ordinary. If you read to that chapter he goes on to discuss

[00:13:27] he calls our attention to something like a work of art say it's a painting

[00:13:32] and he asks us to explain what it means when someone admires a painting or appreciates it. So if you

[00:13:42] think about someone going to an art museum and they're sitting in front of the same painting for

[00:13:48] hours or you can think about the art critic who calls people's attention to the painting and he's

[00:13:55] going to explain what features of the painting make it beautiful and a marvelous artistic achievement.

[00:14:02] Now you don't have to be super artistic or aesthetically minded to understand that there is an

[00:14:10] appreciation, there's a level of appreciation and admiration that people have towards works of art

[00:14:19] like paintings and Lewis invites us to just reflect upon what is going on in this sort of circumstance.

[00:14:29] So this is different from just saying that the painting deserves to be admired or that it's

[00:14:37] just admired by some people like more of a descriptive reflection on it. Rather it's saying that

[00:14:45] in a certain sense admiration is the right response to the painting in such a way that if you fail

[00:14:51] to admire it or see its beauty you will be missing out on something wonderful. So the person who

[00:15:01] is sitting in front of a painting or just you can plug in any sort of artistic work to kind of go

[00:15:07] along with Lewis's thinking here it could be a painting it could be a sculpture it could be a

[00:15:12] wonderful movie something like that when someone is admiring and appreciating something like that

[00:15:21] they are acknowledging that it is a it's a good and right response to have and they're going to

[00:15:27] talk to other people about why they should feel the same way about it and they're going to point

[00:15:32] to things about that painting or that sculpture, that movie that make it a beautiful piece of art

[00:15:38] and make it valuable. And so that's the point is that they are responding to something in a way

[00:15:45] that shows they admire it but also in a way that would imply other people should learn to appreciate

[00:15:51] it as well. And we do this with all sorts of things on a daily basis in our lives even if it's not

[00:15:58] a piece of art it could be something else. So in the same way Lewis suggests that this is the

[00:16:05] way to think about the worship and praise of God. So listen to what he says in this quote

[00:16:14] he says quote it was from this end which will seem to some irreverent that I found it best

[00:16:21] to approach the idea that God demands praise. He is that object to admire which or if you like

[00:16:31] to appreciate which is simply to be awake, to have entered the real world, not to appreciate

[00:16:39] which is to have lost the greatest experience and in the end to have lost all. The incomplete and

[00:16:46] crippled lives of those who are tone deaf have never been in love, never known true friendship,

[00:16:53] never cared for a good book, never enjoyed the feel of the morning air on their cheeks,

[00:16:59] never I am one of these enjoyed football or faint images of it. In quote so what is Lewis saying

[00:17:08] there he's basically saying that the way that he found helpful to approach the idea of worshiping

[00:17:15] and praising God is to think of it like a response to God that elicits adoration, that elicits

[00:17:24] a kind of reverence and fear that elicits love, that elicits joy and pleasure. This is to simply

[00:17:34] be awake he says it means that you've entered the real world. So if we can go back to the example

[00:17:41] of the movie or you can think about a good book like Lewis mentioned here or a beautiful piece

[00:17:47] of music or a piece of art or a friendship he's saying that in certain cases if a person does not

[00:17:56] respond to something that is beautiful or that is a masterful achievement or something that has

[00:18:05] that kind of intrinsic value to it, if someone lacks the ability to appreciate it or if they do not

[00:18:12] respond to it in a way that reflects adoration he's saying that says more about the person themselves

[00:18:22] than it says about the object they are responding to. So he talks about how there's a sense in which

[00:18:30] people who are tone deaf they have no ability to appreciate good music, people who've never been

[00:18:36] in love, people who have never known real friendship or who have never cared for a good book

[00:18:44] or they've never enjoyed the feel of the morning air on their cheeks they don't know how to appreciate

[00:18:50] the beauty of the natural world. There are certain things in life like that that we look at

[00:18:57] that when when we respond to them we recognize the value of what we're responding to

[00:19:02] and we want to tell other people how great the thing is that we're responding to which could be

[00:19:08] any number of those examples when you're truly captivated by something and you see the beauty

[00:19:15] of something you're going to respond to it and you're going to invite other people to respond to

[00:19:20] it and he's saying that there's a lack or an incompleteness in people who fail to respond to certain

[00:19:26] things in life. So that's the principle is that how a person responds to something may reveal much more

[00:19:34] about where they are at than it says about the object or the thing that they are responding to.

[00:19:41] So this is the vantage point from which Lewis is saying we should really think about responding to

[00:19:47] God from this framework instead of just hearing this as a command to worship God it goes much deeper

[00:19:55] than that. We need to think about what it means to worship something or to admire something in general

[00:20:03] and if we start at the level of the ordinary with these many things in life we're already familiar with

[00:20:07] we'll see that all of us actually worship and admire things and we need to think about why that is

[00:20:14] and reflect upon when people fail to do that what does that mean? So if we start at the level of

[00:20:20] ordinary it should light on what the idea of worshiping God means at a higher level.

[00:20:29] So how does this help us think rightly about worship and about these commands in the Bible

[00:20:36] to worship and praise God? Well I think one thing that it reminds us of and clarifies is that

[00:20:44] to worship God means that you ascribe worth to God. So that is what worship is.

[00:20:52] Worship is when you ascribe worth and value to something and as we've already seen every single

[00:20:59] person does this on a human level with many things in life whether this is somebody that you love

[00:21:08] you can express value and admiration for them. You can express admiration for an athlete,

[00:21:15] you can express admiration for an artist. So to worship at its very basic level is to ascribe worth

[00:21:23] and it's to invite other people into that praising something. So we all do that on a

[00:21:29] basic human level. So to worship God means that you ascribe worth and value to him

[00:21:35] and you ascribe worth and value to the only one who is truly worthy of your worship.

[00:21:44] So this is the quality of worship worthiness about God and this stems from many things about God

[00:21:52] but I'll just mention four of them here. One is that God is the creator and the sustainer of

[00:21:58] all that exists. So if you go back to Genesis 1-1 it says in the beginning, God created the heavens

[00:22:05] and the earth. If we go to Isaiah 37-16 it says Lord of armies God of Israel and thrown between

[00:22:13] the cherubim you are God you alone of all the kingdoms of the earth you made the heavens and the

[00:22:20] earth. And if we go to Colossians 1 15 through 17 this is talking about Jesus it says he is the

[00:22:27] image of the invisible God the first born overall creation for everything was created by him

[00:22:34] in heaven and on earth the visible and the invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or

[00:22:41] authorities all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things and by

[00:22:49] him all things hold together. So God is the one who has brought everything into existence.

[00:22:58] God is the one who brought you into existence he's the one who sustains your every breath and

[00:23:03] heartbeat. He's the one who sustains the universe and if he decided at any moment to stop

[00:23:09] sustaining it everything would cease to exist. So the power of God the majesty of God the wisdom

[00:23:18] of God is revealed in the things that he's made and his goodness is revealed in the fact that he's

[00:23:24] the creator and the sustainer of all that exists. And so that's one aspect of the worship

[00:23:30] worthiness of God he's the creator and the sustainer of all that exists. I think another thing

[00:23:35] that we can see is that God is good and the Bible is very clear about this as well it says in Psalm 119

[00:23:43] verse 68 you are good and you do what is good teach me your statues. Psalm 105 says for the Lord is

[00:23:52] good and his faithful love endures forever his faithfulness through all generations. James 117 says

[00:24:01] every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights who does not change

[00:24:08] like shifting shadows. So God's good and we saw in those passages there God is faithful his faithful

[00:24:17] love endures forever he gives good gifts every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from

[00:24:23] the father of light God doesn't change says he does not change like shifting shadows his character

[00:24:29] always remains the same despite the ups and downs of life and despite the way this world changes

[00:24:36] God never changes so God is good that's another aspect of his worship worthiness.

[00:24:43] God is also love says in 1 John 416 and we have come to know and to believe the love that God has

[00:24:52] for us God is love and the one who remains in love remains in God and God remains in him. Psalm 103

[00:25:03] 17 says but from eternity to eternity the Lord's faithful love is toward those who fear him and his

[00:25:10] righteousness toward the grandchildren of those who keep his covenant. So God is love the Bible is

[00:25:17] very clear about that as well. God's love is always faithful and he is good as we've seen

[00:25:25] and he's the creator and the the sustainer of all that exists so those are three things the

[00:25:31] fourth thing here is that God is just and this gets at the idea of God's holiness. So Psalm 9 7 through

[00:25:38] 8 says but the Lord sits in throne forever he has established his throne for judgment and he judges

[00:25:46] the world with righteousness he executes judgment on the nations with fairness. God is a righteous

[00:25:55] judge he's a fair judge he always does what is right he punishes evil and he's going to judge

[00:26:02] the world in righteousness one day and he is going to make sure that all wrongs are righted

[00:26:09] and he's not going to let anything go unpunished which is a problem for us because you and I have

[00:26:18] committed sins against God and if God is good if he's holy and if he's righteous then he's

[00:26:25] going to make sure that our wicked deeds are punished or paid for and the Bible is very clear

[00:26:32] that there will come a day when God's going to hold every single person accountable for the things

[00:26:36] that they've done and that's scary if we're left on our own. The Bible talks also about how

[00:26:44] we're all children of wrath on our own that were under the wrath of God for our sins that we've

[00:26:50] committed against him. We are held accountable for the things that we have personally done wrong

[00:26:56] before him and everybody knows that they've done wrong. We all know that we're guilty

[00:27:03] we brush it aside by saying no one's perfect but at the end of the day perfection is what God

[00:27:09] requires and that is the bad news is that we're headed for a day of judgment and if you're

[00:27:15] depending upon your ability to be good enough before God it's not going to cut it. There's

[00:27:21] nothing you can do to remove the guilt for your sins on your own and that's where understanding

[00:27:28] the righteousness and the holiness of God is crucial. It's a good thing that God is holy and

[00:27:34] righteous. It's a good thing that he punishes evil. We look at the world today and we see things

[00:27:40] being committed that are wrong and that we want people to be held accountable for those things so

[00:27:47] we can look out on the world and see how other people we think deserve to be punished

[00:27:52] but when we reflect upon our own lives and on our own heart we know that we're guilty too

[00:27:58] and that's the problem is that God is so good that He's going to make sure that evil

[00:28:04] down to the, down to the minutest level will be dealt with. He's that good and so if you're

[00:28:11] depending upon your own righteousness your own good works to make yourself clean before God it's

[00:28:17] not going to cut it. The Bible is very clear about that you're headed for judgment if that's what

[00:28:23] you're relying on but this next passage is so important to also understand you have to understand

[00:28:29] that bad news before you can understand the good news of what God has done to provide a way

[00:28:35] for sinful people like you and me to come to know Him and to be forgiven. So first John 1.9

[00:28:42] it says if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse

[00:28:48] us from all on righteousness so there's a part of the justice of God that meshes with the love and

[00:28:55] the mercy of God. That passage there talks about confessing our sins it says that God is faithful

[00:29:01] and righteous or faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all on righteousness.

[00:29:08] Well what does that mean? In 1 John John was writing to Christians and he was saying

[00:29:16] the basis of our righteousness before God is because of what Jesus has accomplished for us

[00:29:21] it's because Jesus was perfect. Jesus never sined. Jesus lived the perfect life that you and I

[00:29:28] could never live. He died the death we deserve was punished in our place took God's wrath upon himself

[00:29:35] and then rose again on the third day he defeated sin he defeated death so everybody who trusts

[00:29:41] in Him and in his righteousness is washed clean of their sins and the one who makes them righteous

[00:29:49] is Jesus himself it's not them it's not their good works it's not the fact that they have

[00:29:54] merited this or that they're better than anyone else the Bible is clear that the only way anyone can

[00:30:02] be righteous before God and be forgiven for their sins is through the righteousness of Jesus Christ

[00:30:08] that's why he came he came to destroy the works of the devil he came to achieve salvation for his

[00:30:14] people and so if you don't know him today I pray that you'll trust in him trust him what he's

[00:30:21] done for you asking for forgiveness for your sins because when we start thinking about the character

[00:30:26] of God like this and what makes him worthy of worship all these things the fact that he's the creator

[00:30:32] and the sustainer of all that exists the fact that he's good the fact that he's loved and the fact

[00:30:37] that he's just point us back to our great need for him point us back to the truth and the reality

[00:30:45] that all of us are guilty before him and we deserve nothing but judgment and if we're relying on

[00:30:51] our own good works then that's where we're headed we don't have any hope apart from Jesus

[00:30:59] but in Jesus if you turn from your sins you turn from living for yourself and you place your hope

[00:31:05] and you're trust in what Jesus has accomplished he will make you righteous and he'll wash you

[00:31:10] clean of your sins he is the limb of God who takes away the sins of the world so when you understand

[00:31:18] these things about God and your eyes are opened to the beauty of who he is it makes sense to respond

[00:31:25] in worship in adoration in praise in reverence it is a right response to who God is the wrong

[00:31:36] response is to ignore him or to not see him this way and the reality is is that every person

[00:31:46] they're going to express their ultimate adoration and devotion to something or someone

[00:31:51] this is just an inescapable fact about human nature you're going to worship something

[00:31:57] and the question is are you worshiping the right thing or are you pouring your soul into something

[00:32:03] that you were not meant to are you pouring your soul into something that in the end can't fulfill

[00:32:09] the weight you placed on it so what we see in all this is that how a person responds to the idea

[00:32:17] or the command to worship God can reveal a lot of things about where they are at spiritually and

[00:32:23] that's largely what Lewis was getting at if a person is is totally not interested in a beautiful

[00:32:30] sunset they just don't even care to look at it for any length of time they don't have any appreciation

[00:32:37] for it this doesn't mean the sunset isn't beautiful it means the person is unable to appreciate

[00:32:43] something that is beautiful if someone isn't moved by a beautiful piece of music or an example

[00:32:50] of reconciliation between people who were once in conflict this doesn't mean that these things

[00:32:56] are not beautiful and good it means the person has a lack of an ability to appreciate these things

[00:33:02] and respond rightly to them so to worship God and to rightly respond to him is to use Lewis's words

[00:33:12] it's to finally be awake it's to wake up from our spiritual dullness and slumber and apathy and

[00:33:20] to no reality as it is so the problem is that we're naturally self-centered and

[00:33:30] we don't want God we want our own way we want to do our own thing Jesus talked about how

[00:33:36] in John chapter 3 right after the verses or the famous verse of John 3 16 he talks about how

[00:33:44] this is the verdict he says the light has come into the world but people loved the darkness

[00:33:50] rather than the light because their deeds were evil for everyone who does evil hates the light and

[00:33:55] will not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed so he's saying that there's unavoidance

[00:34:03] and there's the blindness there that people have towards God on their own because we're so occupied

[00:34:09] with what we want and our self-centeredness and we're blinded in our in our sin so we need God's mercy

[00:34:19] we need his grace to help us see how good he is and to respond rightly to him and this is what

[00:34:24] Jesus does for people every single day he is the one who came to give abundant life and forgiveness

[00:34:33] of sins and he can change your life today there are so many false promises in this world things that

[00:34:40] promise to give you wholeness things that promise to give you real life and every single one of them

[00:34:47] will fail eventually you're going to see that if you're putting your hope and your trust

[00:34:54] in something of this world to to fill your life to fill that deep need that you feel and to

[00:35:01] cleanse you of your guilt you're not going to find that anywhere but in Jesus Christ he's the only one

[00:35:07] who can change you and who can wash you clean and that's what he wants to do I hope that you come to

[00:35:13] know him if you don't know him already so worshiping God is does not stem from the idea that God

[00:35:21] needs something from human beings God is a being of goodness and love yes he's holy and righteous

[00:35:29] and just and he will punish evil but he has made a way for us to come to know him because he desires

[00:35:35] to share his love with us it's not him that's in need God is never in need he's not dependent upon

[00:35:43] anything or anyone outside of himself he's inviting us to know the joy of knowing him and walking

[00:35:51] with him and that is what that is what it means to praise and worship God it means he's the only

[00:35:59] one who's worthy of that and when we do that we are fulfilling the purpose for which he made us

[00:36:04] which is relationship with himself so I hope that today has been a I hope this episode has been

[00:36:14] clarifying about the nature of worshiping God and what that means and this is a podcast that you

[00:36:20] enjoy and benefit from please feel free to leave a good review on Apple podcasts or wherever you

[00:36:27] listen to the show tell others about it so that they can benefit from it as well reason hope podcast

[00:36:33] dot com is the website reason hope podcast at gmail.com is the email address if you have questions or

[00:36:39] comments and remember that there is a reason for hope in Jesus Christ

[00:38:33] you