Our message today is about …
I grew up visiting conservative churches where, if I saw something in the Bible that didn’t line up with what the man-made church traditions taught, then I would quickly skip over that verse and move onto the next one. ----- aren’t we all so often like that? If what we read in a verse doesn’t suit our own pre-conceived ideas, then we conveniently skip over it. ------
Now that’s not smart, and it’s not right. In doing that, we are refusing to take notice of some parts of God’s Word to us. -------
Friends, …
We can’t pick over God’s word like we pick over our plate of food and eat the things we like and throw out the things we don’t like.
------ Most of the time that I’ve rubbed shoulders with Christianity it has been in fairly conservative church settings. So I’ve been a bit uncomfortable with people raising their hands. In fact I’ve tended to run in the opposite direction when I’ve been amongst people like that. And sure, there are a number of things that are done in churches that are of pagan origin and the old devil is pretty happy about that.
And when it comes to ‘Lifting Our Hands to God’, raising hands, some people do it just because everyone else is doing it. We follow the crowd, like Jesus said about sheep, just following each other, or following a false shepherd instead of following Jesus the true shepherd.
“It’s normal”, we say. But when Jesus looked at the churches of His day, He seriously asked the people, “Is normal normal?” ☺ Is what the church leaders are doing and teaching right? - Not right according to the status quo, but right according to God’s Word, the Bible.
I believe that …
The raising of our hands to God, as we’ll see from God’s Word, is right, when done according to God’s Word in the Bible.
----- In a conservative church, a visiting lady lifted her hands in worship to God, and a church member came and pulled her hands down. ---- Now that lady was really, really hurt. She was worshiping God, she was honouring God, she was praising God, she had her hands up, and she was doing what she believed was right, and somebody pulled her hands down in this conservative church. That lady was not impressed. She was hurt, and I don’t think she ever came back to that church again. -----
------ So friends, the question I have for us to consider is this, is it right or is it wrong to lift our hands to God when we worship God?
The title for our message today, …
… comes from one of many Bible verses. This one here is from the Apostle Paul, in 1 Timothy 2:8. “I desire therefore that the men (and women) pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands....”
That’s Paul speaking, and, what does he desire that Christians do?
…”that people pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands …”
We’re going to see from the Bible, that people who believe in the Bible should use their hands in prayer and praise and worship as naturally as they use their tongue.
The tongue gives voice to a person’s thoughts, and raised hands give those thoughts and words additional emphasis. Hands stretched toward God release the whole person to express a greater degree of sincerity and intensity. In one of the hymns he wrote, Charles Wesley caught the heart-meaning of the lifting of the hands when he wrote …
“Father, I stretch my hands to Thee, No other help I know.”
The old-time British preacher, Charles Spurgeon, comments.....
“Uplifted hands have ever been a form of devout posture, and are intended to signify a reaching upward towards God, a readiness, an eagerness to receive the blessing sought after. We stretch out empty hands, for we are beggars; we lift them up, for we seek heavenly supplies; we lift them towards the mercy seat of Jesus, ....”
First, we’re going to put up this heading …
So, our second point, point number 2...
a. Worship creates atmosphere where God ‘moves in’ with His presence and power, drawing people to be touched, healed, forgiven and saved.
In Nehemiah 8:6 (we read)
“And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. Then all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen!’ while lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.”
Here’s that verse from Timothy again about lifting up our hands, that tells us it’s OK and right to lift up our hands while we’re praying. 1 Timothy 2:8 “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, ...”
Now our next point, point b.
b. Lifting our hands to God: Hands stretched toward God releases the whole person to express a greater degree of sincerity and intensity. Some of our worship is the act of giving praise to God and building a bridge that reaches from God’s throne to the lives of His people in need. Our worship establishes a highway between the invisible and visible, encouraging God to invade the scene of our praise, and visit us with His grace and power, working supernaturally among us. Real worship establishes an atmosphere of responding to God, it ignites and illuminates the Word of God, and it prepares our hearts to receive great blessings from God to ourselves, and blessings that we can pass on to others and also give back to God.
Our worship builds a bridge for God to touch the unsaved and the unchurched, a bridge built by believers who are making room for God to ‘move in’ and saturate our minds with His goodness. Worship is people opening up to God’s overflowing love. In our worship, we are moved by God’s Spirit just like when we sang that amazing hymn today, ‘How Great Thou Art’. ------- Our third point addresses the question about the significance or the importance of the lifting of our hands to God in worship.
Point number 3 …
Psalm 34:1 “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
Psalm 47:8 “Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praise to our King, sing praises!”
Psalm 98:4 “Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises.”
Psalm 63:4 “Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.”
Psalm 33:2,3 “Praise the Lord with the harp; make melody to Him with an instrument with ten strings. Sing to Him a new song; play skilfully with a shout of joy.”
But remember friends, the musicians and their music should be presented in such a way that they bring glory to God and not to themselves.
Psalm 47:1 “Clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph!”
I have a friend who goes to a conservative church and he says his church is not full of happy clappers. ☺ I think the important thing is that if I’m concentrating on keeping in time with the clapping or making sure it’s loud enough or looking to see who else is clapping, then don’t clap. But if clapping is genuinely bringing glory and reverent attention to God and Jesus and not to me, then go ahead. Whatever we do, it must not detract from coming closer to God and Jesus and bringing glory and honour and praise to Them, and Them alone.
Psalm 134:1,2 “Behold, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the House of the Lord! Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord.”
Psalm 95:6 “O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our maker.”
Psalm 149:3 “Let them praise His name with dance; let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp.”
Regarding dance, if it’s about ‘look at me’, then don’t do it! It should be tastefully done so that it does not distract anyone from their worship to God and Jesus. Just like it says on the screen, “Let them praise His name with dance; let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp.” ------ Finally, in worship we need to feel comfortable lifting our hands ...
Psalm 63:4 “Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.”
Yes friends, worship involves the whole person. ----- Now let’s look at that word ‘lift’. “ ..... I will lift up my hands in Your name."
What does the word lift mean? ‘Lift’ means to raise from a lower to a higher position. Lift means to take something up (hands at side then raise) out of its normal setting. ----- Now, let’s look at ....
Lamentations 3:41 “Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven.”
Psalm 143:6 “I spread out my hands to You; my soul longs for You like a thirsty land.”
Like a thirsty land longs for water we need to long for God. We need to yearn for God, lift our hearts to God, as we lift our Hands to God. Psalm 88:9 “My eye wastes away because of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon You; I have stretched out my hands to You.”
So, Lifting our hands is lifting our hearts to God. ----
What is surrender? ‘to relinquish control to another, give up, surrender, yield.’
Psalm 119:48 “My hands also I will lift up to Your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on Your statutes.”
Yes, friends, we lift up our hands in surrender to God. We relinquish control to our wonderful God. We yield to God.
1 Kings 8:22 “Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven;”
1 Kings 8:38 “Whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all your people Israel, when each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward this temple:”
1Kings 8:54 “And so it was, when Solomon had finished praying all this prayer and supplication to the Lord, that he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on His knees with his hands spread up to heaven.”
Romans 12:1,2 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” -----
Do you think that lifting holy hands to God in worship and prayer helps us to surrender ourselves to God, to relinquish control to God, and to become a more living sacrifice, a more holy sacrifice, to be more transformed by the renewing of our minds? ---- I do!
That was my experience when I first decided to raise my hands to God in worship. I was able to surrender myself to God more, to relinquish my own control to God more, and honour and glorify God more. ----- I was in a little country church some time ago, where the church folk had invited people from the community to enjoy a music programme they presented, and it was great. I spoke to a visiting lady after the church and I asked, “How did you find the programme.” She replied, “It was a wonderful music programme. I wanted to clap. I wanted to raise my hands to God and say thank you out loud. But the very conservative atmosphere stopped me doing that. I felt suppressed in my worship to God.” she said. And so did I! -----
I never went back and I don’t think that lady did either. ----- You need to be free to do what genuinely brings you closer to God.
----- Do you think this statement is too strong? You don’t have to answer out loud, but you can if you want to. Here it is. “We may be wasting our time on this earth if we’re only lukewarm and half-hearted about coming closer to Jesus and our heavenly Father who dearly want to help us to live a happier, more fulfilled life down here on earth, and later, eternal life.”
Any comments? You’re welcome to comment.
Psalm 28:2 “Hear the voice of my supplication when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands to Your holy sanctuary.”
Lamentations 2:19 “Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift your hands toward Him for the life of your young children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street.”
Psalm 77:2 “When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands.”
Psalm 141:2 “Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”
Genesis 14:22 “But Abram said to the King of Sodom, ‘I have raised my hand to the Lord, God most High, the possessor of heaven and earth.’ ”
Over in Ezekiel 20:5 we find God raising His hand, affirming His choosing of the children of Israel as His own people and also affirming that He was their Lord.
Ezekiel 20:5 Say to them, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘On the day when I chose Israel and raised My hand in an oath to the descendants of the house of Jacob, and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, I raised My hand in an oath to them, saying, ‘I am the Lord Your God.’ ”
----- In a courtroom, a witness takes the stand, places one hand on the Bible, lifts the other hand, and swears an oath to tell the truth. By raising his hand, the witness pledges that his testimony will be accurate. That action lends credibility to his testimony. ----- God Himself raises His hand to make oaths and covenants. He legally swears to covenant with His people. He obligates Himself to His people publicly and on the record.
In the same way friends, Christians reaffirm their covenant with God by lifting their hands in worship. With raised hands they declare their commitment to God openly, bluntly and without shame and place all earthly relationships in second position. The lifting of hands shows obedience. It shows a willingness and a readiness to do God’s will. It is saying to God that Satan is not the Lord, I am not the Lord, but our wonderful God is the Lord.
Psalm 134:2 “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord.”
Psalm 63:4 “Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.”
Nehemiah 8:6 “And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. Then all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen!’ while lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” ----- Friends, when we transfer our attention up to God, and tell Him the amazing value we place on Him because of who He is, we are showing worth to God and worship to God.
Revelation 5:12,13 (refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God. I quote,) “... saying with a loud voice: ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and glory and blessing! ... blessing and honour and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!’ ” ------ So friends, in summary...
Friends, in conclusion, I’d like to make two final statements. Firstly, please be very careful about criticising people verbally, or even in your mind, people who raise their hands during worship. You just may be going against God’s word in the Bible.
And secondly, if you wish to raise your hands in reverence to God as you worship, then feel free to do so. In spite of some of our man-made traditions, it is OK, it is right, it is Biblical, to lift our hands in worship and praise to our wonderful, awesome, deserving Lord. --------
As we close, I invite you to sing again that wonderful hymn, ‘How Great Thou Art’. - I could invite you, out of thankfulness, out of reverence, out of gratitude, to lift up your hands to our awesome Creator God, but I won’t.
Why? Because it’s a bit scary to make changes. None of us like to change. Man-made traditions are hard to change. We understand that, and God understands that. But He does wants us to grow, in our love for Him, in our worship to Him, in our spontaneity to Him.
So as we stand and sing again that wonderful hymn, ‘How Great Thou Art’, please think deeply, as we lift up our hearts and lift up our voices, and if you would like to, God gives you permission to also lift up our hands, to our awesome Creator God.
Please stand with me as we close in prayer….
“Lord, that wonderful song, ‘How Great Thou Art’, reminds me of two DVD’s I have watched many times. The first one is about You Lord, and it’s called ‘Indescribable’. --- The second one is also about You Lord, and it’s called, ‘How Great is Our God’. Lord, both of them show us how unbelievably awesome you are. Both of them will bring us into a more wonderful relationship with You and Jesus. Father, if any of these dear people genuinely want a more powerful relationship with you and Jesus, I pray You will put it into their hearts to take these free DVD’s from the table in the foyer. --- And not only to take them Lord, but to watch them. Thank you Father, in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.
Friends, if you have been blessed and challenged by this message, then please take time now to send it on to your friends.
To God be the Glory!
Thank You,
Ray Archer
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