You Were Planned For God's Pleasure

Mike Royco, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, once reported this true story. A man named Bill Mallory traveled to India to discover the purpose of life. But he didn’t find the answer there. So after returning, he noticed a sign at Chevron gas station that simply said, “As you travel, ask us.” So every time he pulled into a Chevron station, he would look to the sign and say, “I’m a traveler. I’d like to ask you a question. What is the purpose life?” These were the answers he got. The first guy said, “Sorry. I’m new here.” The second guy said, “I don’t remember anything in the manual about that.” Another guy said, “I’m not much for church myself, sir.” One guy gave him a leering look and a wink, whatever that meant. However, most people just gave him a blank stare, cleaned his windshield; but he kept asking at all the Chevron stations.
One day Mallory got a phone call from Chevron Customer Relations. He said, “We understand you’ve been asking our dealer questions and getting unsatisfactory answers.” The man suggested that he write out his question and send it to Chevron Corporate with a self-addressed stamped envelope. So Bill Mallory took a piece of paper, wrote, “What is the purpose of life?” and sent it to Chevron Gas Company. A couple of weeks later, the envelope was returned. The only thing in it? An application for a credit card!
How about you? Did you find your purpose this week? Well, unless your small group jumped ahead, you shouldn’t have . . . just yet, anyway. We’re on day 7 of 40 Days of Purpose: A Show of Hands, and today we’re going to talk about the first purpose. God has five purposes for our lives, and today we get to talk about the first one: You Were Planned for God’s Pleasure . . . and that’s called worship.
What is worship? I looked it up in the dictionary last night, and Webster’s says that our word “worship” comes from a word meaning “worth-ship.” In other words, giving something worth. Is that right? Is that good enough? That we give worth to God through worship? No, that’s not really good enough to say that. God is already all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, etc., etc., . . . He doesn’t need us to give worth to Him. So there’s got to be more than just that.
Webster’s goes on to define “worship” this way: “a prayer, church service, or other rite showing reverence or devotion for a deity; religious homage or veneration.” Okay, that’s not bad. Simple, but not bad. Then it says, “unbounded admiration; intense love; extreme devotion.” Heeeeyyyyyy . . . that’s sounding pretty good. Is that what “worship” means? I think we’re getting close with that one . . . maybe closer than we know.
In the Gospel reading from today a teacher of the Law came to Jesus with a serious question. He came to Jesus, and he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus’ answer is also our memory verse for the week, so let’s read it together—either from your memory verse keychain or the banner for today, we read: Mark 12:30 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; that phrase sums up worship. If you can do that, then you have worshipped. Well no—not really. There’s one thing—one very important thing—that needs to be added to that first.
I don’t want to give the impression that this first purpose—the purpose of worship—somehow begins with us. True worship does not begin with us. Like everything else in our lives, true worship begins with God.
1 John 4:15-19 says, “16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.”
Where does love come from? Right—from God. The love we give to one another, even the love we give to God, that all comes from God. He gives us love through Jesus Christ. Love that we don’t even deserve, love that we can’t understand . . . and yet He gives it to us. Why? Because loving you pleases God. Let me say that again: loving you pleases God.
This is why one of the great Lutheran theologians said, “We cannot offer anything to God unless we have first been reconciled and reborn. The greatest possible comfort comes from this doctrine that the highest worship in the Gospel is the desire to receive forgiveness of sins, grace, and righteousness”
The highest worship in the Gospel is the desire to receive forgiveness of sins. Where do we receive this forgiveness? Look around . . . see any hints here today? Sure! Through the sacraments! Through the Lord’s Supper! Through the Means of Grace—through the Word and the Sacraments—God makes His grace in Jesus Christ available to us. This is so absolutely central to our faith and life, everything else revolves around it. Every aspect of worship we’re going to talk about today—they’re all centered around God’s gifts of grace to us in Word and Sacrament. Our whole worship life revolves around what God first gives us.
That leads us to our first point. Worship is my response to God’s love. Worship is just the way I react, I respond, to God when He loves me. That’s what worship is. His gives His love to us, and then we worship Him back. God always takes the initiative; He always makes the first move. He creates us. He saves us. He forgives us. He blesses us. He protects us. He does all these things and then because of all these things, we worship.
Second; Worship is giving back to God. He gives to us, and we give back to Him. And whenever you give back to God, whenever you offer anything to God, that’s called worship. And that brings pleasure to God. It brings enjoyment to God. When your kids are grateful to you, as a parent, that brings pleasure to you. When we’re grateful to our Heavenly Father, that brings pleasure to Him. Now, the question is, What am I supposed to offer? I mean, what do you give a God who has everything? I mean, He made the world. He made you. He made the universe. What do you give Him?
I’ll tell you what you give Him…you give Him your love. You give Him your love. He gives it to you, and you give it back. He tell us in our memory verse—remember it? Let’s say it again together: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”
I want to point out that God wants me to love Him three ways: First, God wants me to love Him thoughtfully. It says, “love Him with your mind.” Thoughtfully. In other words, He wants you to think it through, to not just do it without thinking. He wants you to worship Him thoughtfully, know and love Him thoughtfully. Second, God wants me to love him passionately. He says, “with all your heart and all your soul.” God says, “I want you to love Me passionately, because I passionately love you.” And Third, He says, I want you to love me practically. Practically. “love Me with all your strength”, with your abilities.
You see, the truth is that even though God created the entire world and the universe and He created you, there are three things God does not have unless you give them to Him. He doesn’t have your attention unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your mind. He doesn’t have your affection, unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your heart and your soul. And God doesn’t have your ability, unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your strength.
Like we said before, everything in our lives begins with God. He has given us all those things. You have the ability to give attention. You have affections. You have strengths and abilities because God gave them to you. And whenever you take the things God has given to you and you give them back to God, that, friends, is the heart of worship.
At one time, Liz Curtis Higgs was one of the best-known disc jockeys in America, and she lived quite a wild life. In fact, Howard Stern was the a.m. show, and Liz Curtis Higgs was the p.m. show. And one day Howard Stern said to Liz, “You know, you need to get clean up your act.” Now, that really says something if Howard Stern is saying it, okay? I mean, that’s pretty wild.
And because Liz Curtis Higgs had been burned by so many men and her heart had been broken so many times by these men, she became a militant feminist. And I underscore, militant feminist. But she had a Christian girlfriend who kept inviting her to church. Week after week this would go on, so one day after a long, long time, Liz finally said, “Okay, I will go to church one time and ONE TIME ONLY.” And wouldn’t you know it, that week the pastor just happened to be teaching on the Bible verse that says “Wives submit yourselves to your husbands.” Now, that’s not exactly a good verse to start with a militant feminist, okay? And Liz got pretty uptight. Angry.
But she continued to listen and she actually heard the second part of the verse, which nobody ever talks about. You see, the second part of the verse says “and husbands - you sacrifice yourself; you give yourself for your wives just as Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for the church and died for her.” People don’t ever hear that second part, okay? Who is asked to give their life up? The husband or the wife? The husband. Okay? The husband. Well, when Liz heard that part, she leaned over to her friend and said with a little cynicism, “well, shoot, I’d gladly give myself to any man if I knew he would die for me.” And her friend leaned over and said, “Liz, there is man who loved you enough to die for you. His name is Jesus Christ. That’s how much He loves you.” And it was not long after that that Liz dropped her guard, surrendered her life to God in love, and received the gift of God in Jesus Christ. Today she is a well-known Christian author and speaker.
I know what some of you are thinking, you’re saying, “This thing about loving God. You know, I just don’t love God enough.” That’s not your problem. You say, “I don’t love God enough.” That is not your problem! Your problem is you don’t realize how much God loves you. That’s your problem. If you really knew how much God loves and cares about every detail of your life, you’d throw yourself at Him, and go “Oh, how could I not love a God like that?” You just don’t know how much He loves you.
Worship is always a response. We love God because He first loved us. And when you understand how much He loves you, How He loved you enough to even come to earth and die on a cross for you, then you simply stand before Him and say “Thank you, Lord, for everything You have done for me, everything You have given me. Even though I could never repay You for all that you’ve done, I want to give You back as much as I can . . . because You first loved me.”
And that is the heart of worship.