Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Come to Worship, Part 1: Lift Your Hands

Episode Date: December 6, 2014

Everything changed in a moment. When Jesus was born, He gave us the chance to be known, accepted, and forgiven. When we experience His love, we can’t help but Come to Worship. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You God are my God. Earnestly, I seek you. I thirst for you. For my whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live. And in your name, I will lift up my life.

hands. Well, welcome today to all of our live churches, all of our network churches, and our family all over the world at church online. I'm really excited today to begin a new four-part message series called Come to Worship. As we approach the Christmas season, what I really want you to do is take time to focus on who Jesus is, on what he did for us, on the power of the virgin birth, and as we do so, I believe God is going to expand our hearts to know him more intimately because we have come to worship him. In fact, our title is taken directly from Matthew's Gospel, Matthew chapter 2, verse 2, when the wise men came before King Herod and Scripture says this. They asked, where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose. We saw his star as it

rose and we have what? Let's all say this together, all of our churches. We have come to worship him. Why are we here? Say it again. We have come to worship him. What I love about this is that the wise men didn't come to get something from God, but they came to offer worship to him. Tragically, in the part of the world where most of us live, Christianity really has been reduced to some kind of a formula so often where people actually believe that God exists for us, that if we just do the right thing, if we pray the right prayer, if we act the right way, then God's got to do whatever we want him to do. It's kind of like he's a genie. We rub on him just right, poof, he's going to pop out and say, you get three wishes for today, and I'm here to serve you. What is your wish? Your wish is my

command. And literally, we reduce God to somewhat of a cosmic Coke machine. If you put your coin in, push the button, say the prayer, do your devotion. Make sure you post an Instagram picture of your devotion. Buy a cup of coffee, so everybody will know just how spiritual you are. Do something nice for someone. Don't flip anybody off while you're driving. And put a life church bumper sticker on your vehicle, then God is going to answer your prayers because he exists to make your life better.

The reality is that is not why God exists. He does not exist for us. but we exist for him. We are created to glorify him, to worship him, to make him known, and to bring him honor. And I'll be real honest with you as a church. I believe that God wants more of us from our hearts toward him in worship. In fact, just as your pastor, I would say there are a lot of things that we're doing really well as the body of Christ. But quite honestly, I believe one of the greatest areas that we can improve is learning not just on the weekends, but seven days a week to be worshippers. Worship isn't something we do. A worshipper is who we are. We're created to worship

God from the depths of our hearts. And so for the next few weeks, what I want to do is really ask that God would build within us a desire to know him intimately and worship him passionately. We're going to look at four different postures of worship. Next week we're going to talk about bringing our gifts, and the greatest gift we'll ever bring is the gift of our own life. Week three on Christmas Eve, we're going to talk about pouring out our hearts. I'm sorry, week three is pouring out our hearts. Christmas Eve will talk about bowing our knees as we kneel before him.

And today, I want to start with lifting up our hands before a holy God in a heart of worship, lifting our hands to God. Now, some of you, if you didn't grow up around the church and you kind of walked in and you saw people doing this, looks a bit different, right? It does. You look on and it almost feels awkward

because it's like watching somebody make out. You know it's real, but you don't feel like you should be watching. People are doing something. You're like, I know I can tell that's real to them, but it seemed awkward to me to watch. And so what I want to do is explain why is it that scripture teaches us to lift our hands to God and what exactly does it accomplish? Again, for those of you that may not be regular church people, it is kind of funny to look at.

In fact, comedian Tim Harkins talked about this and I wish I could remember everything he said, but he said there are different forms of worship. And if you're a church person, you'll kind of know. I'll tell you a couple that I remember that I made up a field of my own. He said, basically, with your hands, there's the carry-in-the-television form of worship. Then there's the big screen worship. There's the, this is how big my fish was that I caught form of worship. There's the Jesus is number one, worship.

There's the high-five Jesus worship. Some of you know what I'm talking about. There's the high-five Jesus worship. There's the beauty queen Jesus worship. the pageant girl worship, also known as the wash the window worship. Right? There's the single girl worship. No ring.

I love Jesus and I'm available. You can love Jesus with me. Then do we have any sports fans? Any sports fans at all? Basketball? Any basketball fans, basketball? There's the classic block the shot worship, which is really popular if you're 22 or younger. okay, all different types of ways to worship with your hands.

But on a more serious note, what I want to do today is look at scripture and let it come to life to us as we deeper understand why it is that we do something with our hands as a reflection of what's actually in our hearts. And I want to start in Psalm 63. We're going to look at verses 1 through 4. Then we're going to look at some other places in the Bible. and this was actually David in the wilderness when he was at a very low point in his life.

And in verse one, David cries out to God as a reflection of what many of you may feel in your heart even now. He says, you God are my God. Earnestly, I seek you. I thirst for you. My whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

I wonder right now how many of you are in a place in your life where this kind of reflects your current situation. It feels dry right now. You feel like you're in a desolate place. Sometimes you feel alone and rejected. Oftentimes you feel afraid. I didn't think life was going to turn out like this. I didn't think I'd be at this place in my life right now.

I'm going into the holidays and it's supposed to be a really happy time and it's happy for so many people, but it's not that happy for me right now. It's always interesting to me how the holidays, Christmas is kind of a magnifier. It makes the good really, really good. But the hard times kind of makes really, really hard. David's crying out, I need you, God. From the depths of my soul, I thirst for you, I long for you, I crave for you.

There's nothing on earth that satisfy me right now. I desperately need you. He says this in verse two. He says, I've seen you in the sanctuary, and I've beheld your power. and your glory. That I love verse three, he says, because your love is better than life. Think about that.

The love of God is better than life. It's eternal. It's everlasting. It never fails. This life will fade away. But the love of God never, ever goes away. Your love is better than even living, he says. Therefore, because of that, my lips will glorify you.

I can't stop it. Because your love is that good. I've got to proclaim your love. love. I've got to tell you I need you. I've got to tell you that I long for you. Because you're that powerful, because your love is something that I couldn't ever earn and I certainly don't deserve, I have to bring praise to your name. That he says this, I will praise you as long as I live. Now remember, he's in a bad place. He's not going, I'm thanking you because things are good. He's simply saying, I'm thanking you because you are still good, even though my circumstances are not.

He says, I will praise you as long as you live. And then watch this. He says, in your name, what will I do? Everybody help me out. He says, in your name, I will what? I will lift up my hands. In your name, I will lift up my hands. In your name, because of who you are, I will lift up my hands to praise and glorify you.

This is an act of worship. In fact, I've told you all before portions of my story when I became a follower of Christ. I was in college and fell into a lot of wild sin. And out of curiosity, I actually started a Bible study in my fraternity house. A gentleman from the Gideon gave me a free Bible and we started to read it.

And I got together with, I mean, literally my party friends, we didn't know how to read the Bible, we didn't know what to pray. We started at Matthew 1 because mine was the New Testament Bible. I didn't even have the Old Testament. No wonder it was free. You know, and we started reading about who begat, who begat, and this begat. I'm like, skip to another chapter. Dear God, this is boring, you know. And at the end of our Bible studies, honest to goodness, God is my witness. We would pray things like God, protect us

as we go out partying this weekend. Keep us safe as we get drunk. I pray, oh God, that my best friend's girlfriend's not pregnant. Protect them, God. And that's all we knew how to pray. Well, I was reading in this Bible study, in this little bit of room that became so full of people that I couldn't even get out the door. And we read Ephesians 2, and I read through verses 8 and 9. And if you're not familiar with those verses, it just said that you're actually saved by the grace of God. It's through faith. It's not through your works. And listen to me, when I read that, it was like water in the desert, because I thought I had to be good enough for God. I thought I had to perform and be religious. And all I knew is I wasn't good enough and I wasn't religious enough.

And like, oh my gosh, I could be forgiven and it's not something I have to earn. And so I climbed out the window. I didn't even go out the door. Climmed out the window, went out to a softball field all by myself, knelt down, face down before God and just cried out to God as best I know how I give my life to you. And I can't explain what happened, but just the weight of all the sinful stuff that I'd done wrong, it was lifted off of me. And after being on my face, I kind of got to knees in a kneeling posture and listen to me, I didn't know to lift your hands before God. I wasn't raised in a church like that. I grew up in a Methodist church, okay? The only time you raised your hand in the Methodist church was when you had to go to the bathroom. Like, can I go to the

bathroom or ask a question? That was it. And I was just, all I knew is I felt so much the love and the presence of God that kneeling there, I just lifted my hands just like this and cried out and thanked God for who he was. It was, it was, it was, I was. a natural, maybe even, maybe even a supernatural response to the grace of God. And my hands just, I hadn't seen it anywhere. I didn't know it was in the, they just went up to God like this. It came out of my soul. It came out of my soul.

Listen to me. You cannot experience the grace of God without showing gratitude in some form or fashion. When you truly understand who he is and what he's done for you, want to express your heart in worship for him. And that's what happened to me, even at that very moment. In fact, I want to read to you a verse from the New Testament. Paul was actually giving Timothy. He was a young and up-and-coming pastor. Paul was giving Timothy instructions to help Christians worship in 1st Timothy 2.8. And this is what Paul told young Timothy. He said, therefore I want the who. Let's all say this aloud. I want the

men everywhere to pray doing what? I want the men to pray lifting up holy hands without anger or dispute. I want the men to lift up holy hands. Now, sometimes in the Bible, in the older translations, it'll say, I want men or mankind. And what that means is everybody. This actually means men. It doesn't say like mankind, I want people. It actually says men. It's interesting to me that Paul said, I want the men to do this. I don't know why for sure. And I don't know why for sure. I can't prove it, but I would say, based on my experience, that men are often the last to do this. Maybe it's because of pride, maybe it feels awkward, maybe it just feels like a chick thing, not a man thing.

But for whatever reason, Paul says I want the men to lift up holy hands to God. I can only imagine as to why. If I'm guessing, I'm guessing because Paul wants the men to set the standard of worship. Paul wants the men to be leaders in their family. Paul wants the children to see the fathers seeking the heart of God. If you want your children to seek after God, you need to be one seeking after God yourself. And I would just say to the men of our church, don't you dare let your wives outworship you. Don't ever let your children outworship you.

You set the tone. You seek God. You be a man after God's own heart. And I'll give away the end of the message. going to tell you right now, I'm going to ask every single one of you, whether you're a Christian or not at the end of our time, to lift up hands toward God. And I want the men to be the first ones and those with their hands lifted high. And you probably can do that easily because you're taller than most everybody else here anyway. But I want the men, Paul said, to lift up holy hands,

to set the standard that before anybody else, we're going to be worshippers. We're going to have a heart for God. Now, why would God ask us to do this? Why is it that God wants us to lift our hands to him? Again, I can't prove this, but I believe with all my heart that our God, our Heavenly Father, absolutely loves when his children lifts hands to worship him. I believe God loves this. I devastated a lot of the women in our church a few weeks ago when I told the truth. I confessed, and the women were like, you know, they're still crying in some places about this, that I'm, I don't go crazy over babies. I don't go crazy over, I don't know why. I know almost every woman I know like a baby, but my wife is like, you know, if your baby is within 10 miles, she can sense it and she wants

to hold your baby. I don't want to hold your baby. I don't really care about your baby. I didn't even care about my babies. I mean, I kind of loved them because they were mine and I had to, but they're just babies. I'm not proud of this. I wish it were done. but I just look at them, they don't do anything, okay? They're babies. If you bring me your baby, I've trained myself to smile and say, oh, that's a baby, but that's all. And it's only because I've trained myself to do it, okay?

That's just the reality for me. I don't care about babies, but I will tell you this, the moment that my babies sit up, roll a ball toward me, say, dad-da, I care about toddlers, I care about toddlers a lot. I mean, the first time, Katie, my oldest daughter, did the Frankenstein walk.

You know what that is? They're learning to walk. You know, they're on the coffee table or whatever, and they pull away and they do this. The Frankenstein walk. And she came toward me and then did this. Dada! I'm the biggest bowl of mush jello you have ever seen in your heart.

The moment her hands come up to her. me, my heart goes toward her. And I can just imagine the love of our heavenly father. There is no loving father on earth who would reject the outstretched hands of a child. And our heavenly father loves when we lift our hands toward him. When our hands move toward God, I believe his heart moves toward us. He loves when we lift up our hands to worship him. In fact, James 4-8 says this. James says, draw near to God. And what will he do?

He will what? He will draw near to us. As we draw near to our Heavenly Father, as we lift our hands saying, God, I can't reach you, but this is the best I can do. I'm lifting up my hands and an act of worship.

As we draw near to him, he draws near to us. Why do we do this? I believe God loves it. It also can be an offering of praise. But literally, like, you might give money and an offering, and that's a way

to give an offering, but lifting up your hands can be an offering to God. In fact, this is what Psalm 141 versus 1 and 2, David, again, at a very low point in his life, says, oh, Lord, I'm calling on you. Please hurry. Listen when I cry to you for help.

Accept my prayer as incense offered to you. And my upraised hands as an evening offering. I love this. I'm praying and accept that as an offering. I love you. I need you. Accept my upraised hands as an evening offering to you. Some of you today, this will be the first time you've ever given an offering of lifted hands to God. It may feel a bit awkward at first. It may feel like you're kind of pushing yourself out of your spiritual comfort zone, but you just lift them up and say, God, I'm offering my heart to you.

I'm offering my praise to you. You may not even feel like praising right now. I'm offering praise to you anyway, not because of what I see, but because of who you are. And God will be pleased. We lift our hands because God loves it. We lift our hands to him because it's an offering of praise to our God. We lift our hands because we're reaching out to him.

And as we draw near to him, he draws near to us. Another reason that we may lift our hands to God is because we're declaring battle, and we need God's help. Some of you right now, you may be in a place where you're in a real battle. I mean a real battle, a real dark place. If things don't change, you don't know what you're going to do right now. And you're going to lift up hands and say, I'm declaring battle. And I need the help of my all-powerful God to do battle with me and for me.

I'm declaring battle with uplifted hands. In fact, I want to give you the best example of this in all of Scripture in the Old Testament in Exodus chapter 17, the Amalekites were attacking the Israelites. And so Moses said to Joshua, hey Joshua, choose some men. We're going to battle. They've declared war against us, and we are pushing back. And Moses says, tomorrow I'll stand on the top of the mountain. And I will lift my hands to God, and I will pray.

to him. And here's what scripture says in verse 10 and 11. So Joshua fought the amelicites as Moses had ordered. And Moses and Aaron and her went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses did what? Everybody say it aloud. As long as Moses held up his hands, what happened? The Israelites were winning. But whenever he did what? Whenever he lowered his hands, what happened? The Amilekites were winning. So check this out. What do we have? Winning, losing. Winning, losing, tying. Reven, right? We're losing. It's kind of like hot, colder, colder, warmer, winning. Okay, when the arms were lifted up acknowledging the sovereign power of God, God, God's people were winning.

But when the arms were no longer up, acknowledging the power of God, God's people started losing. Here's the reality. Some of you right now, you're in a battle, and it feels like you might be losing. It might be time for you to lift up your hands and say, God, I trust you no matter what.

To lift up your hands and say, on my own, I don't have the ability to get this done, but I seek you. I lift up my hands and I praise you in spite of what I see, in spite of what I feel, despite of what's going on, I continue to praise you. I lift up my hands declaring the battle is yours, God, and I trust in you.

I lift up my hands, God, and I declare that by faith, I believe you are fighting for me, and you are with me, and greater is the one who is in me than the one who is in the world, that no weapon formed against me will prosper, but God is for me and has plans to bless me. I lift up my hands. Then what's interesting is verse 12. Whenever Moses' hands grew tired, because guess what, you can't leave it. hands up like this for hours on end. They get tired.

They wear down. When his hands grew tired, they took a stone and they put it under him and he sat on it. And Aaron and her, his two friends did what? Read it aloud. They what? They held up his hands, one on one side, one on the other,

so that his hands remained steady until sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amiliki army with the sword. In fact, Bobby and Sam, Can I have you guys for a second? The reason I want you all is because Bobby and Sam actually hold up my arms all the time, not just like, you know, when I'm working out, you know, but Bobby actually does.

We work out together some. Look at that. Look at that. Look at that. We've got a license for that. But they do this every single day. And when I start to lose faith, what do they do? They hold up my hands.

When I get tired, they pray for me. when I'm discouraged, they're there for me. Two men of God, two brothers, who never leave my side, who helped me hold up my arms and continue to seek God, men that for over 15 years has stood with me in prayer, has stood with me in battle, who stood by my side when others didn't believe what I said might be true, who believed the best when they could have believed the worst, who stood there and continue to hold up my arms in battle. Thank you guys for serving me in this way. Not only, will you hold up your arms, but that's why we worship together.

That's why coming to church matters. Because we don't just worship God by ourselves. We worship them as the body of Christ. We corporately stand together, leaning on one another, lifting each other's arms and saying, together we're going to seek God. Together we're going to press into him. When you can't hold up your hands,

I want to be there to help hold them up. I want to be an error and I want to be her, and I need you to be that for me as well. Some of you are in a battle right now. You're in a battle. It's time to declare, God, I need you. Think about this. Throughout history, what have uplifted hands meant?

Two things, primarily. Number one, victory. You win, you're at a sporting event. Listen to me, you may not be religious, but you get religious at a sporting event when your team's winning. Block the shot, block the shot, block the shot, okay, right? Second, what does it mean?

Someone puts a gun to you, what do you do? Surrender. It means victory and it means surrender. Guess what? In the presence of God, it means both simultaneously. At the moment that you surrender to him, you find victory in him. Oh, I could preach that all day long. In the moment that you surrender to him, you find victory in him.

our team wrote a song for this series and I want all of you to sing it I don't care if you're not a Christian I want you to sing it you sing songs you don't believe in all the time you're in your song you're in the car singing on your radio singing at the top of your lungs Taylor Swift song Shake it off fake it off whatever okay you do it all the time you lift up your hands at things all the time I don't care what you believe I want you to do an experiment with me just sing at the top of your lungs lift up your voice. Our team wrote this song. It's actually been number one

on iTunes and Christian section all week long. But I want you to worship as a declaration of praise as you reach out to God and watch them reach out to you as an offering and a battle cry.

Would you join me as we worship God and at the right time maybe for the first time in your life lift up holy hands as an act of worship. to our good God. Before the king of glow,

we bow our knee, the Savior closed and split. Hearts poured out. There is none beside you. Oh, come. Let us adore. As we continue in a heart of worship to our God at all of our churches, let's pray together.

Father, thank you today for what's happened, and that there were people who have never before lifted hands to you. And God, we pray in the next few moments that you would do a work in our heart to move us from not just worshiping occasionally, but being worshippers in our hearts. And all of our different churches, as you take a moment and reflect,

those of you who are followers of Jesus, you are believers in God through Jesus. And you may worship a little bit here and there. If you truly want to be a worshipper seven days a week, that you want to see the present, of God, if you want to acknowledge his goodness in the middle of conversations, if you want to depend on him moment by moment, day by day, some of you are in a battle and you want to worship him through the battles. You want to sense his goodness. Worship is not just going to be something

you occasionally do, but a worshipper is who you are. And all of our churches, if you would say, yes, God, I want my heart to grow even more toward you, that I might be one who lifts my hands and does even more than that, because I cannot not respond to your goodness and grace. All of our churches you say, yes, I want to deepen my heart and passion and intimacy for God and worship. Lift your hands right now, your holy hands before God. Leave them up for a while, if you will. Father, thank you for a church with hands lifted toward you. As we reach toward heaven, God, I know heaven reaches toward us. As we draw near to you, God, draw near to us. May you be pleased with the worship of your church.

both corporately and individually, may our hearts turn toward you. God, I pray specifically for those who are worshiping through a battle right now. God, I pray that there would be other brothers and sisters who would help hold up their arms. Give them strength to continue to seek you to depend on you. God, we surrender our hearts to you. We lift our hands as an act of worship, as an offering, an act of praise, and a cry of battle. Be pleased, O God, as we draw near to you. and we thank you that you draw near to us.

You can put your hands down, but keep your eyes closed at all of our churches right now, if you will, for just a moment. There are some of you today that you're about to lift your hand for a different reason. You're going to recognize that you're not a committed follower of Jesus.

In fact, like David prayed earlier, he was desperate and he was longing for something more. Some of you right now, you genuinely and sincerely are longing for something more in this life. There's something missing and you know it. You may be at a very dark place

and you feel like you need rescue where you're at the right place because God's right hand is not too short to save. He extends his hand towards you and that's the very reason that many of you are here today. And all of our churches are those of you

you're recognizing and you're acknowledging, yes, I'm not following God. What does this mean? Well, the reality is that because we're all sinners, every single one of us, our sin separates us from God. But just like the verse I explained earlier, here's the amazing news that God loved us so much that he sent Jesus,

who was without sin to die on a cross in our place, and he was raised again from the dead, so that anyone who calls on his name would be saved. We're made right with God not by our good works, but because of his love and by his grace through our faith, believing that Jesus is enough. What does a lifted hand mean? Two lifted hands. It means victory. and it means surrender. Today at all of our church, as there are some of you, you're going to surrender to Christ today.

And the moment you do, it is total and complete victory. Your sins are forgiven, and you are brand new. And all of our churches today, those of you who say, yes, that's me. Yes, I need him.

Yes, I need his grace. Not one hand, but two, in surrender and victory, lift both hands high to God right now. All of our churches, you say, yes, that's me. Lift your hands and say, I surrender to him.

Church online, you click right below me. me. And as there are people in countries around the world coming to Christ today, would you join your heart with theirs in prayer? Pray aloud, pray. Heavenly Father, forgive me of my sins, make me brand new. I lift my hands and surrender my heart to Jesus as my Savior and the Lord of my life. My life is not my own. Today I give it to you. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. In Jesus' name, I pray. Would you all worship really big right now? Welcome those going into the family of God.