Our Purpose in Life is to Please God. (A message that helps us realise that God takes delight in those that choose to love and serve Him and live a life of worship unto Him). Main Scripture: Psalm 149:4 4 For the LORD takes delight in his people; A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE HAENERTSBURG CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN HAENERTSBURG, SOUTH AFRICA 16 th September 2018 Dr. Ian F. Loughor-Clarke, Pastor admin@haenertsburgchristianchurch.co.za Introduction: Well good morning to you all and to all those viewers on YouTube and those that are listening on itunes or podcast. It is such an honour and privilege to have you connecting and sharing this time with us. Last week we started a series on Purpose and my title for the sermon was: 1. All things begin and end with God. 2. You re no accident. 3. What is driving you in life? 4. We were made to live forever! 5. Live life from God's viewpoint! A. Life is a test. B. Life is a trust. C. Life is a temporary assignment. Living a Life of Purpose 6. The ultimate reason for everything is to glorify God. My title this morning is: 1. We please God when choosing Him. Revelation 4:11 11 You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, Our Purpose in Life is to Please God. 1
for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. God is worthy of our worship and to receive glory and honor and power and majesty all the time just because He is God. He is worthy of this no matter how we feel, where we are or what is happening in our lives. Psalm 149:4 4 For the LORD takes delight in his people; Think about why you and I wanted children? We wanted children because of the pleasure and delight that a child would bring into our lives. Not because of what they could do for us, but purely because of the fact that they will bring us delight, pleasure, happiness and fulfillment. Likewise, God created you and I so that we could bring pleasure to Him. This is our main purpose in life to bring God glory, pleasure, delight, laughter, joy and happiness. May you never again, for one split second, feel insignificant, because God ordained and chose you before the foundation of the earth and He wanted you to bring pleasure to His heart! When we bring pleasure to God s heart this is called worship. Worship is multifaceted, as it is not just ascribing worth to God, but also living a life of obedience and this pleases His heart. Worship needs to be a daily, minute-by-minute lifestyle and not just a once off event. Please take careful note that worship does not have to involve music. Every part of this church service today is worship unto God. Please note that worship and music are not necessarily synonymous terms. God created music and loves all forms of music, but this is not the only thing that is called worship. You can worship God with music and song, but you can also worship God through obedience, work, play, or whatever you do when you give Him glory. This is called worship. Let me tell you that your style of music or worship to God is your preference and based on your background, personality and culture, but certainly would not be seen as more preferred by God than other people s style of music. This is purely an ethnic group s musical likes or dislikes. One style is not more superior than another's, but just different and God likes and enjoys them all. There is no such thing as Christian music, but only Christian lyrics. The words of the song are what make the song sacred and not the tune of the song. May we never forget that it is all in the words! So, from now on when you sing, may you do it to bring pleasure to the heart of God and for His benefit and not yours! If you say that you got nothing out of the music at church on Sunday, then what you were doing was all for the wrong reason for it's not about you. That is correct it is not about you, but it's about Him. Isaiah 29:13 14 13 The Lord says: These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. 2
May we never again forget that our life is one of worship unto God, for it is not just a part of our lives, but it is our lives. We are to be worshipping God all the time no matter what activity we are doing. When we do this with the attitude of worship unto God and not man we will enjoy life and live less stressful lives. We were planned by God to bring pleasure to Him and that is why He created us. 2. We please God when living a lifestyle of Worship. Romans 6:13 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. We are called to worship God with every part of our being including our bodies. The whole heart of worship is where we offer ourselves up in surrender to Him. Therefore, surrender and offering ourselves up to Him is all we do and say in life and this is actually worship. The whole point is that we choose to surrender not out of weakness, but out of love for Him. Romans 12:1 12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship. You see that offering yourselves up to God is what worship is all about. May we choose to forget about trying to control our lives and stop living in fear and pride and surrender completely to Him and His Lordship in our lives! If you can trust God completely you can surrender completely, However, if you do not trust God completely you will never surrender completely. Dr Ian Loughor-Clarke If you're fully surrendered to God, then if He says that you should lift your hands in worship to me then you would automatically do this because you're fully surrendered to Him and don t care what goes on around and about you in life. It is important to realise that all of us were made to worship God and this is all about surrendering and offering our life to Him. So, if you don't offer your life to God, you will offer it to money, lust, pride, ego or the expectations of, others. Now we are all free to choose what we surrender to in life, however we are not free from the consequences of our choices. Let us all choose from this day forth to offer our lives in surrender to God and Him alone. May we all choose to surrender our lives to God and make it our goal to please Him and Him above all others in our lives. This is then following the first commandment in life. The greatest hindrance to the blessings of God in your life is not somebody else, but you. 3
Just remember that choosing to surrender to God is a daily moment, by moment choice and not a once off choice. We all have to choose, day in and day out, to take up our cross and follow Him, because we glorify Him because of who He is and not because of what He does for us. 3. We please God when we choose His Friendship. God desires that we are His best friend. We were made to live in His presence and this is what Adam and Eve had when they enjoyed God in the Garden of Eden without sin and had intimate fellowship with Him. John 15:15 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. We are not just God s servants, but we are privileged to be called His friends. He desires to make things know to use that are not just privy to anyone. These intimate secrets are only shared with those that are in intimate fellowship with Him. Jeremiah 9:24 24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight, declares the LORD. If there is anything that we are going to boast about in life let it be in the fact that we know God. Any of our achievement are by His grace and kindness to us. But let our boasting be in the fact that we know God. We are not to just spend alone time with God or have quiet times with God and that's where it stops, but rather our whole lives should be one of involving God in everything we do. This means that our whole lives are spent with God and in intimate fellowship with Him. So, may you not change what you're doing, but change your attitude towards what you are doing. Start to do it with God and for God at all times. God wants us to be continually aware of His presence in our lives and to be continuously communing with Him. This is what a lifestyle of worship and friendship with God is all about! Reading, meditating and learning the Word of God should be a part of all of our lives, as this will ensure that we understand the heart of God far better and will mean that we know how to please our God. James 4:8 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. God wants us to draw near to Him, but we must do it holiness. This does not mean that He is 4
warning us to be perfect and faultless, but rather coming to Him in earnest friendship and honesty. Not one of the people in the Bible that God was a friend with were perfect, but they were honest and lived surrendered lives. You and I can be frank, question and even argue with God and He doesn't seem to be phased about this because He loves honesty and sincerity. Part of learning to become intimate with God is learning to obey God no matter what the situation or circumstance. The Bible is very clear that those that obey God are his friends. May you and I never forget that we can be friends with God, but our friendship is always based on reverence to him and of Him! We are to obey God out of reverence and love for him and not out of fear, guilt, obligation or anything like this. John 15:9 12 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Just note that you cannot love others if you do not first love God. If you do not love others then you must question your love for God!!! Mark 12:30 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. God wants all of us not and not half a commitment or half of our hearts. We are to worship Him in spirit and truth. We are to live lives to and for Him but ensuring that it is in complete love and adoration. Sometimes God hides his face from us and that is the time that our faith is going to be tested and we must not give up till He smiles at us and speaks to us with clarity. Stop seeking an experience and start seeking God. You have to remember that faith in God is what pleases Him and not feeling. Do you know that Job lost his family, business, friends, health and everything that he had. God remained silent for 37 chapters in the Bible and Job did not know what was going on. Do you keep believing and trusting in God no matter what trial that you go through? Do you keep believing and knowing that He is still God and that He is on your side even though everything seems to show the opposite in your life. Do you keep remaining faithful even though everything in your life just does not make sense???? If you can say yes, then this is ultimate worship and this is what God wants, that we love and serve Him no matter what happens or does not happen in our lives. We worship Him because He is God whether we feel like it or not and even if everything seems to be pointing in the opposite direction we continue to live full out for Him. 5
Re-cap: 1. We please God when choosing Him. 2. We please God when living a lifestyle of Worship. 3. We please God when we choose His Friendship. May we all live every minute of every day in worship to our Lord as we choose Him above everything and foster our relationship with Him above everything in life. Amen. This sermon was preached by Dr. Ian Loughor-Clarke at Haenertsburg Christian Church on the 16 th September 2018. (c) Dr. Ian F. Loughor-Clarke, Haenertsburg Christian Church. For more sermons from Ian go to http://www.haenertsburgchristianchurch.co.za Except where otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the International Version Bible, Copyright 1985 by The Zondervan Corporation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 6