Preparing Yourself for Worship

The point: Prepare your body for worship by adequate rest on Saturday night.

Martin contrasts angels, who can worship tirelessly, with humans, who are embodied spirits and require physical rest to worship God effectively, highlighting the need for adequate rest.

You see, you don't worship God as the angels do. They worship as disembodied spirits. The Scripture says the angels are sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation. Angels can go all Saturday night on the bidding of their God and still worship Him fresh on Sunday morning.

7:19 - 7:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Discipline your Saturday nights to ensure you are rested for Sunday morning worship.

He explains that the 'battle for worship' is often won or lost on Saturday night, emphasizing the need for discipline in evening activities to ensure sufficient rest for Sunday morning worship.

And that body is so tied in with the activities of the spirit and of the mind that a body inadequately rested cannot give itself to true worship. So, the battle for worship is not just about worshiping God. The battle for worship many times is won or lost Saturday night. This is one reason why in our congregation we have no Saturday night church activities.

7:54 - 8:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Discipline your Saturday nights to ensure you are rested for Sunday morning worship.

Martin shares that elders sometimes stay up late for prayer, but clarifies this is not presumptuous as it's engagement in Christ's work, distinguishing it from undisciplined late nights.

Now, we don't go around like some kind of spiritual Gestapo checking up on everybody to see if they're all in bed by 9.30 Saturday night because there are times when we as elders wouldn't be a good example. That's the one night that we can get together weekly as elders to pray for the congregation. Sometimes the needs keep us up a bit late, but we feel that's not presumptuous because those later hours are matters of engagement in the work of Christ.

8:21 - 8:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Prepare your mind and heart by warm thoughts of God's goodness and mercy before worship.

He uses the metaphor of 'priming the pump' or 'building the fires of devotion' to explain that pre-worship preparation creates a backlog of spiritual pressure that then pours out in the first hymn.

Read the first chapter of Ephesians. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Fill your mind and heart, not only with lofty thoughts of the greatness of God, so that there is something of awe in your worship, but fill your mind with thoughts of his goodness and his mercy, that your heart may run out to him in hymns of praise and Psalms of adoration that flow from your present awareness of this God and his goodness to you. Now, you see, if you don't, as it were, prime the pump, if you don't build the fires of de...

12:08 - 13:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Praise God with your whole heart in singing.

Martin compares the wholehearted, unashamed enthusiasm and emotional display of football fans for their team to the level of engagement God deserves in worship, arguing that spiritual things should elicit even greater passion.

Now, if something has your heart, it has everything else. I love to watch this when I get a chance, particularly during the fall, to watch a few football games. You never get that once you've been involved in body contact sports. I guess it never gets out of your system.

14:54 - 15:11 Read in full sermon

Driving home: One of the curses of our Western culture, as it touches the religious life, is that it's somehow given us the idea that we can get, enthusiastically, abandoned to anything, but when we touch spiritual things, somehow we …

He cites David's uninhibited dancing before the ark, despite his wife's embarrassment, as a biblical example of wholehearted, enthusiastic worship that defies cultural propriety.

When David got so blessed at the return of the ark, he danced for joy before the ark. And his wife saw him and was embarrassed about the whole thing. And he says, if you think this is bad, I'll dance yet more vehemently in joy before my God. And the Scripture lays upon us the duty of wholehearted engagement in the praise of God.

16:28 - 16:52 Read in full sermon

The point: View giving as an act of presenting your whole self to God, not just money.

He uses the absurd image of passive football fans claiming commitment to their team but showing no outward enthusiasm to illustrate the inconsistency of claiming to worship God wholeheartedly without visible engagement.

No, no. It's simply underscoring the fact that the Father seeks worship in spirit. If you saw a bunch of people who claimed that they were wholly committed to Alabama beating Notre Dame in the postseason bowl game and they sat there on the Alabama side, go get them, go get them. I say, that's ridiculous.

17:09 - 17:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Engage your mind and all your energies in listening to sermons.

Martin recounts a young woman's remark after a sermon that she felt 'absolutely exhausted and exhilarated both at the same time,' illustrating that true, active listening to preaching is spiritually draining yet rewarding.

I remember one time preaching at a conference and the Lord was unusually present and I was conscious of his help and I think anyone with any discernment was conscious that God was there. And I'll never forget the remark of a very discerning young woman who came up afterward and she said, Mr. Martin, I feel absolutely exhausted and exhilarated both at the same time. Well, you see, the measure of her spiritual exhilaration was in direct proportion to her exhaustion in that she had given herself to the ministry of the word of God.

20:39 - 21:13 Read in full sermon