“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and were created.”“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, the Holy One, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and because of your desire they existed and were created!”Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created.
12 sermons cite this verse
… The primary purpose of worship is to give glory to God. In Revelations 4.11, they say, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. You are worthy, O Lord. The primary purpose of worship is to give glory to God. That's so important for us to know. Because when we come into church, sometimes we base our worship on other things besides the worthiness of God. Sometimes I come into worship and it's based on my feelings. Sometimes I go, ah, I don't know if I feel like it today. I want to be, I just want to be authentic. I said, I don't feel like it today. Do you think Job felt like praising when he says, you give and take away? Blessed be the name of the Lord. Had nothing to do with his feelings. He said, I'm going to bless the Lord. Sometimes we base our worship on our performance, our behavior, thinking like, oh, I had a good week. I deserve to work. When have you ever deserved to worship God? When have we ever deserved to be in his presence outside of the grace and blood of Jesus Christ? So it was never based on my behavior or my performance. …
… is a relationship with God himself. Revelation 4.11 says, God created all things for his own pleasure. You know some people spend their whole life chasing happiness. They spend their whole life trying to find the ultimate pleasure, the ultimate experience. No you were created to give God pleasure. When you give God pleasure, which means you come into a relationship with Him and a friendship with Him and you begin to communicate with Him and hear from Him, you will find the pleasure you've been looking for, not from seeking it, but from seeking God himself. The purpose and meaning of life is to know God and discover his plan for you. And the Bible also tells me how to get to heaven. Is there any more important question than that? How do I get to heaven? I was talking with someone the other day, and I asked them if they believed they would go to heaven. And their answer was, well, yes, I'm a good person. I had to break the bad news to them that they're maybe a good person, relatively speaking, but they're not good enough to get to heaven. …
… Worthy are you, God, to receive glory and honor and power and authority. For thou didst create all things, and for you they exist and were created. Lord, the church says worthy. You alone are worthy of the praise. And Father, we will not let the rocks cry out in our place. We will voluntarily say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. We are your sons and your daughters. We are in your presence to hear from you. Speak, Lord, we are listening. In Jesus' name. Everybody agreed and said amen? Amen. Amen. You may take your seats. I would say it was three decades ago that I was in a little small women's retreat. Can't even call it a conference. There were probably about 38 of us in that little room. There was a woman that stood up to give her testimony. I will never forget. I was in my 20s at the time. She probably was in her 60s. Her name was Dory Van Stone. We called her Miss Dory. Everybody was hanging on every word that Miss Dory shared with us, because as she gave her testimony, it was so riveting and disturbing that it was hard to wrap your mind around. She and her sister were neglected and basically abused at the hands of their mother, the one who was supposed to love them and take care of them. She would leave for days on end, leaving her at five years old to take care of her two-year-old sister. When mom did return, most of the time she was frustrated and just …
… and cast their crowns before the throne saying, you are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will, they exist and were created. The benefit of earning a crown is so that in this moment and every chance and opportunity you get, you get to cast the crown before his feet. And I don't want to be there and have nothing to cast. I don't want to be standing before him and just be going, wow, it's so cool of you to die for me. So I could be here. That's awesome how you bled out. Because the word for crown is stephanos. Stephanos. Stephanos of life. Stephanos of rejoicing. Stephanos of glory. There's only one time the word stephanos occurs in all four gospels. One time. And it's in connection to the crown of thorns that Jesus wore upon his head. The only crown he wore on this earth was a crown of pain. And so I want to keep my eyes on that, getting every crown potentially available to me to thank him so I can declare before him, this is my thanks. …
And don't you think he is worthy of you doing something to express gratitude to him? Revelation 4.11 says this. You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created. He created everything he created for his glory. It's about his kingdom. It's about advancing his reputation. It's about making him real. It's for his pleasure. that's why we come here today for the pleasure of God matter of fact I'm stopping even trying to convince people to come to church I try to talk to people Tell them why they need church But the more I recognize That's not why you ought to come to church You ought to come to church Because it's for his glory And for his kingdom It's what he declares. That's why you ought to be here, because it's what he declares. It's not about you. Look at your neighbor. Say, it ain't about you. Look on the other side. …
… in that holy moment in heaven. You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they were created and have their being. That's why you get all the glory. A different place in the same context in Revelation says, to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be all the glory and all the honor. Not most of the glory, and we get a tiny bit of the glory. No, all of the glory is going to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb. He is worthy of all glory forever. This whole story is always gonna be God's glory. Just bear with me, we're coming down to the end here. The problem of sin is to miss God's glory. It's not to do something bad. It's not to be disobedient. It's not that you made the wrong choice. Those things did happen, yes. But what was going on when those things happened? …
… down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, and they are saying, Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created. And in chapter 5 we see a similar situation. Down in verse 9, they sang a new song, Worthy are you to take the book and break its seals. You were slain and purchased for God with your blood, men from every tongue and tribe and people and nation. And then in verse 12, more praise coming from myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands of angels. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And every created thing in heaven is also responding, saying, to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. …
… lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, and they begin to say, Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed and were created. You are the Creator. You have a right to your creation, which has been in the hands of a usurper since the fall in the garden. It's time to take back creation. So we've already been to the throne of God in looking at chapter 4. We return to that throne in chapter 5, and let's look at verse 1. Now God is sitting on the throne, and God is the one behind all of the activity in not only this vision, but all through the book of Revelation. And so John writes in his vision, he was transported to heaven in a vision, and he says, I saw in the right hand, or literally on, upon the right hand of Him who sat on the throne, which is, of course, God, a scroll, a book, a scroll, literally, written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. Now, what is this? Scrolls were very familiar in ancient times. Before books, books were called codex. Scrolls, biblio, was an ancient way of communicating before books were invented. It could be made out of parchment. It could be made out of papyrus. It could be made out of animal skin, and it was rolled up. So here you …
… the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed and were created." Now we titled this series, Heavenly Worship, and there is the substance of that heavenly worship focusing on God on the throne. And focusing in particular at this picture on God about to unleash judgment, once you hit chapter 6, it's horror after horror after horror all the way to chapter 19 until Christ returns. This is worshiping God for His vengeance. It may seem like a strange reality, but I'll show you how essential it is. One other note to make is that the angels are very much involved in this vengeance, this wrath. If you look at chapter 6, it all starts in verse 1, the Lamb, being Christ, breaks one of the seven seals that seal the title deed to the creation. …
… who is and who is to come. And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created. That's an incredible scene in heaven. We would never know anything about it were it not for the fact that the Lord gave John this vision and revealed it to him. Now remember, this is the second vision. John will have a series of visions going through Revelation. First one was the vision of Christ in chapter 1. Then with letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3, we saw Christ moving in His church. When we come to chapter 4, the scene changes. …
… They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? and no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it and one of the elders said to me weep no more behold the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David has conquered so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain. …
… They cast down their crowns before the throne saying, worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created. Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it. And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into it. And one of the elders said to me, weep no more. behold the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David has conquered so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals and between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth and he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. …