Good morning, CHURCH!

(Church joke of the day)

I was reading this week about this physician that stumbled upon something interesting with a patient.

Dr Joe Brown of Rochester, Minnesota, had an enlightening but also frustrating encounter while trying to get a physical history on a new patient.

The patient’s wife was present during the physical and she kept answering every question for the patient her husband.

It was kind of annoying to Dr. Brown.

Finally, Dr Brown requested that she leave the room.

After she huffed and puffed a bit, she did leave the exam room.

This caused a huge problem because after she left, Dr. Joe discovered that her husband the patient couldn’t speak.

So with egg on his face, he called the wife back into the exam room and Dr Brown apologized for not realizing the man had Aphasia.

“What is aphasia?” asked the wife.

“Aphasia includes a loss of the ability to express speech,” said Dr. Brown.

“Wow,” said the wife, I had no idea.

Stunned, the Dr. said, “So why were you answering all the questions for him?”

The wife said, “Because I have prophasia.”

Dr. Brown said, “What’s that.”

The wife said “A supernatural ability to read his mind and tell what he wants to say.”

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Let’s go to the book of John 5:44-45 NLT for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

As you woke up today and looked out a window or on your drive to service today you were able to see all sorts of things.

(Buildings, trees, houses, land, flowers, bushes, animals, insects etc.)

The reason you were able to see these things is because of the light the sun is giving.

The sun lights up everything.

And not just the good things but the bad things too?

As I drove in, I also saw trash on the sides of the road and streets.

I saw potholes, weeds and even some abandoned homes and buildings.

You see, the light of the sun doesn’t just allow us to see the good but also the ugly.

The sun shines it’s light on everything.

And this is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 5.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

Matthew 5:44-45 NLT

But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!

45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.

Question?

Does the sun shine on the just and the unjust?

When it rains doesn’t it rain on the just and the unjust?

So, if you are a true child of God you should act like your Father and love the lovable and the not so lovable.

As children of our heavenly Father:

We don’t love based on the actions of the other person.

We love based on the actions of our God.

Let’s all take a shot of that wisdom.

Let’s get into today’s message.

After last weeks after service, God led me to a pivot.

Before last week I thought I had at least one more week to go with the Jesus Said series but after the after service experience from last week God is leading me in a different direction.

God is leading me to a new series on worship.

Today’s title of the message will also be the title of the series.

The Heart of Worship

I believe the Lord wants as many of us that will take heed to the teachings in this series to go to another level in our worship of Him.

Many of us know that we should be worshiping Him but we are often missing marvelous opportunities to worship because of this Idea that worship happens at a particular time in a service or with a particular type of music I play in my home.

And if this is what we think, our worship is so few and far between that by the time we come together all the other stuff we’ve been worshipping has our minds attention.

I believe A lack of understanding can be the cause of us perishing in the area of worship.

And my goal with today’s service is to start tilling the soil that will lead us to a heart of worship.

Point #1

Worship is the life of a believer.

Let’s talk about the essence of worship and how it goes beyond certain songs and rituals.

Because we’ve often relegated our worship to a genre of music or a time in church with everyone else, we’ve dropped the ball.

And we don’t get the true essence of worship or what it means to worship God.

In worship we as murre human beings recognize God for his attributes and we express this through adoration, praise, thanksgiving, service, and living holy lives.

Our adoration, praise, thanksgiving, service and holy living should all be easy because of how much we recognize the attributes of God.

If you are wondering what are His attributes?

There are so many attributes of God that we should never run out of reasons to recognize and expressing worship of Him.

I’m going to cover just four of them during this first point in my message.

One of the attributes of God is that He is:

Omniscient – God is all knowing.

We should be continually aware of the omniscience of God.

Maybe the reason we do so much in our own strength is because we don’t stay constantly aware of this attribute of God.

Some of you may wonder does the Bible say God knows all?

1 John 3:20 NLT

Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.

Jeremiah 1:5a NLT

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.”

We should always be aware that God knows everything and in relation to Him we are supremely limited in what we know.

Another attribute of God is that He is:

Omnipotent – God is all powerful.

I don’t think we would fear stressful situations if we were continually aware of God’s omnipotence.

We surely wouldn’t try to make things happen outside of his direction if we were continually aware of His omnipotence.

And yes the scriptures speak of His power.

Matthew 19:26 NLT

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”

I believe it’s because we are not continually aware of God’s omnipotence that we believe and doubt at the same time.

(How many times have you been praying for something or for someone and your mind starts doubting right in the middle of your confession of faith.)

Psalm 147:5 NLT

How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!

We should always be aware that God is the supreme power of the world and that He has the power to do anything.

Another one attribute of God is that He is:

Omnipresent – God is always everywhere.

Now we definitely wouldn’t act the way we do at times if we were continually aware of God’s omnipresence.

When we get hot and start spewing off at the mouth; you can’t tell me we are aware of God’s omnipresence at that time.

And of course the Bible backs this up.

Proverbs 15:3 NLT

The Lord is watching everywhere, keeping his eye on both the evil and the good.

Jeremiah 23:24 NLT

“Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” says the Lord.

We should always be aware that God is near us and always sees us and not just us but everything and everyone.

One of the ways to start making yourself to be more aware is to start talking to God continually throughout the day.

It seems like for the most part, we talk to God during our morning prayer and during extreme emergencies.

Another attribute of God is that He is:

Omni-benevolent – God is supremely good.

James 1:17 NLT

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.

E.g. (I’ve been at a restaurant and we ate outside. We picked a spot in the shade but 30 minutes in the sun’s shadow has shifted and now one side of my body is burning up.)

James is saying that God is so supremely good and His goodness doesn’t move from his children.

We should always be aware that God is supremely good.

And if ever we have thoughts contrary to this, we lack knowledge in some way.

Again I say that we should be recognizing God for his attributes.

And we should be expressing this continually through adoration, praise, thanksgiving, service, and living holy lives.

Point #2

Worship is a state of mind.

Worship should not be something we do but rather who we are.

Colossians 3:16 NLT

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.

This is what we should be full of.

We should be so full of the message of Christ that there is no space for anything else to infiltrate our minds.

But when the world has just as much if not more space in our lives how can the message about Christ fill our lives?

Worship for a believer should be a constant state of awareness of who God is.

We should come to a place in our lives as believers that we look for and see God in everything good.

(This is something we’re going to have to train ourselves to do.)

Our times of gathering for what we call praise and worship in corporate settings should merely be a time of expressing adoration together, just how we express it alone on a regular basis.

E.g. (Lord, I thank you for waking me up, Lord, I thank you for the heat of the sun, Lord, I thank you for the rain on the grass, Lord, I thank you that I got to work safely, Lord, I thank you… fill in the blank.)

Point#3

Worship is my lifestyle.

Romans 12:1 NLT

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.

And we know Paul goes on and says not to copy the ways of the world around us that don’t follow God.

Worship will include a mindset change.

The way I used to think, I can’t think anymore.

Worship is a lifestyle of surrender, reverence, and gratitude towards God.

If you can’t think of anything to be grateful to God for, remember the great exchange of His righteousness for our unrighteousness.

We don’t deserve the love of God, but he gives it to us without restraint.

(I think we sometimes get to the place that we feel we deserve God’s love.)

When you understand worship in this manner, and you read the scriptures certain things will stand out to you.

Like how (Throughout the Old Testament, God implored his people to turn from worshipping idols and to worship him alone.)

They worshiped idols or foreign gods like Baal, Moloch, Dagon etc.

Question?

What foreign gods are you worshiping and putting along side of God.

Have you ever noticed that God’s punishment in the Old Testament was mostly directed at misguided worship.

Let us today realign our worship to God and God alone.

If you’re watching online or here in the building, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?