Dear Church family,
I hope that mother’s day hasn’t worn off on you yet any more than our celebration of Easter shouldn’t wear off on you. Christ is risen and reining every day of our life, and our mothers deserve the honor due to them every day of our life too. I’m certainly thankful for my mom as I realize that her love for Jesus and people has greatly influenced me. She genuinely loves Jesus and His people, and there is no doubt about that. I thank God for a mother like mine.
And regarding yesterday’s sermon, I hope that hasn’t worn off on you either (Gen. 8:20-9:17)! I pray that you would continue to worship God like Noah throughout this week as you respond to His provision of salvation from sin and death, a brand-new start to life, and an eternal life that never ends in Christ.
Remember that our worship begins by understanding God as provider. Worship happens when we respond to God with willing and sacrificial thanksgiving because we understand that He has provided everything for us as Creator, and salvation for us through Jesus as Savior. This is what we see in Noah, sacrificing to the Lord as a result of God saving him from a flood of judgment on the sins of the whole world. And even more, as he stepped off the ark, he would have seen a whole new world for him to enjoy. Our worship happens just like this too: knowing God as Creator of everything for us to enjoy, and knowing Him as Savior Who has saved us through Jesus from judgement upon our sins.
What an amazing motivation to worship God. Instead of worshipping God to appease Him, we worship God because He is already pleased with us in Christ. Our worship should be a response as opposed to an initiation.
In this way, there is a massive difference between false worship and true worship. False worship tries to worship God by giving Him things (good works, financial gifts, charity, Church attendance, morality, etc…) that one thinks will please Him and gain His favor (or increase it). True worship happens when we already know that God is perfectly pleased with us through Christ and our faith in Him via what God has done for Himself to save us by the Cross (justice is paid!), and we respond with grateful worship, knowing that our relationship with God is already established. False worship happens in order to try to gain a relationship with God. True worship happens in response to a relationship that God already established with us.
Noah shows us what this true worship is…as a man of faith (Heb. 11:7), God already considered him righteous. And His worship was in response to an already established relationship with God through God’s gracious salvation.
Again, let’s worship the Lord, Church, remembering all that God has provided for us by grace, not only salvation, but a covenant of kindness that He gives to the whole world! This should well up in us a deep desire for generosity in our giving of our time, talents, and treasures, for God’s purposes, all for His glory!
May we be a true God worshipping Church responding to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, our 3-in-1 God.
With love in Christ,
Aaron
