True Worship
Christian Disciplines • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction: What is worship?
The Merriam Webster dictionary says: Worship is:
: reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power (Our love or devotion toward God or some other god) also : an act of expressing such reverence (Such as bowing down) (add photo - bowing down)
: a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual (Such as a worship service which we are participating in)
: extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem (Something other than God, etc...) (photo of fans worshipping the Beatles)
So worship is a matter of our heart, what we have reverence for or it can be something that we do based on what is in our heart. That is worship.
So the big question is: Who or what do you worship? You are here participating in worship to God the Father, Jesus the Son and God the Holy Spirit. But is that all you worship?
During a discussion with a Samaritan women, in the heat of the day beside a well, Jesus said:
22 “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23 “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
According to Jesus she didn’t really know who or what she worshiped, but the Jews knew who they worshiped. So sometimes who we worship isn’t always God, it might be a god of our own design. That God, God the Father, who we want to be worshiping is looking for worshipers who truly worship Him, in spirit and truth. Sometimes this is very hard to do. We get lost in all the stuff of the world and begin putting other things before God the Father.
Transitional Sentence: What we must remember is that continually worshiping God in Spirit and Truth is hard but it can be done.
But why? Why God alone and why is it hard? Hopefully I will show why:
1. Our Worship should be for God alone
2. Why it is hard to worship God alone
And:
3. How do we fix it
1. So why should our Worship be for God alone?
a. Ex 20:3-6 This is the beginning of the ten commandments:
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
These laws are the reason we should worship no other god. Even if someone doesn’t know or believe these words God will still use them as a beginning point for judgement. They apply to all people, all those who came before us and all those who will come after us.
Laws 2 and 3 (verses 4 & 5) point to other things that can come between us and God. In this particular case law 2 speaks of making an idol. (show them Bruce the moose or...) However since worship is a matter of spirit, or what is in our hearts an idol can be a whole lot more than this. We’ll get to that in a few minutes.
b. So why worship God alone? He is a jealous God. He wants us to be completely devoted to Him. If you remember the third definition of worship from the Merriam Webster dictionary it says:
extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem
This takes into account what is in our heart. There isn’t a lot of space in here (point to heart). And it gets filled up with other stuff very easily. If we are showing devotion to something other than God then God is not getting all of us. We are divided. Jesus said: MT 6:24
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
To serve and to be devoted to are worship. We can’t get away from it - it’s a matter of the heart - don’t divide your loyalty. Remember God is jealous for us. He doesn’t want to share us with other gods or created stuff. Those of you who are married do you want to share your spouse with another man or woman? No - of course not. This is the way God is with each of us. He doesn’t want to share. In Exodus 20:5 it says God, will visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,”. Yikes - who wants that. Judgement is coming.
c. So what do we do about it?
37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
This is the answer Jesus gave to take care of our idol worshipping problem. All your heart, all your soul and all your mind. That’s a mighty big order. There is so much stuff in this world to get in the way, so many other things to draw our attention away from loving God.
2. But why is it so hard to worship God alone?
a. It’s hard because there are so many other gods to get in the way.
So who are these gods that get in the way? Well some could be actual gods like Baal that the Jewish people were constantly struggling against. Others can be the gods of the other religions, such as: Buddha (this particular statue is in Japan and is about 80 feet high. His sandals were 24 feet long. I know that because they are sitting there waiting for him to get up and use them. More gods would be all the gods of the Hindu religion (millions of them). This image is Vishnu. There are a lot of gods that draw people away from God. They are all created images made of wood or metal or something else. Rom 1:22-25 says:
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
They exchange the truth for a lie. The truth is that God is Spirit and all of these things are just created images.
But these aren’t the only gods or idols we can make in our lives.
b. John Calvin once said, “The Human heart is an idol factory.” Why is that? How can our hearts be making so many idols? Well everything starts in our heart. In our heart or spirit we can take something that shouldn’t be an idol and turn it into one. Things like love, material possessions, family and even a career can become an ultimate thing. We deify them as the center of our lives because we believe we will find significance, security, safety or fulfillment if we attain them. How much money does it take to be secure?
c. Besides our hearts being idol factories trying to find significance in things other than God our hearts are seldom satisfied with what we have. We want more and more and more. This is covetousness. Ex 20:17 says:
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
This is commandment 10 of God’s commandments. It speaks directly to this idea of wanting more. These are the big valuable things in someone else’s life that we want to have also. In modern language we call it keeping up with the Jones’. We want the newest fanciest car, computer, phone or clothes. We want more of what we have because one is not enough. $100,000.00 is not enough, we need one more comma to make it an even million.
John D. Rockefeller once said: How much money does it take to make a man happy? Just one more dollar.
So when does that one more dollar come? There’s always another dollar to get. This 10th commandment spoke about our hearts and our desires. God knew we would always want stuff and we would want it at the expense of our souls. Don’t sell your soul for one more dollar, or that next promotion to try and make yourself feel better. It isn’t worth it. That next dollar will go away, all the stuff will rust and decay, besides someone else will come along who is better than you, or you just get old and can’t keep doing what made you feel so great. It’s all fleeting, a mist in the wind, only God is eternal. Only God will be there at the end, none of the stuff of this world will be with you.
So if each of us is so good at making idols...
3. How do we fix it?
a. One of the first things we can do is follow Paul’s advice to the Colossians: Co 3:5-6
5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience,
The members of your earthly body are all of your pieces and parts. Even your heart and your mind. Something that is dead is pretty much useless. So if the members of our bodies are dead and useless for the purposes of immorality and impurity we will do the opposite - we will keep ourselves pure, unstained by the world. If our members are dead to evil desires and greed we will be content with what we have and not be chasing after one more dollar. These things, immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires and greed have their beginnings in our hearts. So, of all the members we have in our bodies the heart is the one that has to die first to these things. So guard your hearts in Christ Jesus and avoid the wrath of God.
Another way to fix our issues with idolatry is:
b. To follow what Jesus said in Matt 18:8-9.
8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire.
9 “If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.
Ouch - Seems a bit extreme doesn’t it? How many of you know anything about the Muslim faith? Especially the Taliban. If you are caught stealing this is exactly what would happen to you. According to the Quran: (Read the slide!)
Although this could be taken literally in order to remove sin or an idol from your life it is generally considered to be hyperbole. Jesus was exaggerating to make a point. Sometimes, something very drastic has to be done in order to take care of sin or an idol in our lives. It would be a very hard thing to cut off your own hand or pluck your eye out, but sometimes that is what has to happen.
What are the idols in your life that need to be surgically removed? What members of your body haven’t died which cause you to stumble. Deal with them in a drastic way if necessary.
c. Another example of Jesus’ expectation for His disciples to get rid of idols, greed and the desires of self is also in the gospel of Matthew:
38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
This seems a bit extreme too, doesn’t it? The cross was an instrument of death. A painful and shameful way to die. However, if we are going to follow after Jesus we have to put ourselves to death. The members of our bodies must die so that we can break the strongholds of sin and idols in our lives. Holding onto our greed, desires and idols keeps us from following after Jesus.
Just remember one thing about that cross - you have to pick it up everyday. All the stuff that keeps our hearts producing idols comes right back if we let our guard down. So don’t let your guard down.
Now that we have done the drastic actions required to get rid of our idols by removing members of our bodies or putting ourselves to death there is one last thing we must do everyday.
d. Heb 12:1-3 says:
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Do you see it? The key to taking care of idols in our lives and helping us to worship God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in Spirit and Truth. Fix our eyes on Jesus. If we keep our eyes on Jesus we won’t be looking at or chasing after all the other stuff in this world that pulls at us. He is the author and perfecter of our faith, He is the one that will help us walk this life worshiping only God and not all the other stuff that we could so easily put before Him.
Exit: Matt 22:37
So, in case you have forgotten we were going to determine why
1. Our Worship should be for God alone
Why it is hard to worship God alone:
2. Many other gods get in the way
And:
3. How do we fix it
We worship God alone because He is the only one worthy to be worshipped. He is the creator of heaven and earth and everything that is in them. He sustains us and provides all things for us. We should worship Him alone because He is a jealous God. He is jealous for us and wants us to chase after Him alone. No one or nothing else really matters. Matt 22:37
Matthew 22:37 (NASB95)
37 “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
Unfortunately it is hard to worship only God because there are so many other gods. Our hearts are factories churning out gods that take our devotion away from God. We make stuff up. Besides all of the made up idols that look like created things we make idols of our own choosing. Our careers, money, love whatever happens to cause us to turn our back on God or causes us to chase after something more fervently than Him. That’s an idol. Don’t try to serve two masters at once. It doesn’t work.
But remember, there are ways of dealing with idols. We can burn or destroy them if they are actual graven images and if it is one of the many made up kind we can cut it out of our lives. Just like cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye that sins. Do something drastic to get rid of it. Right up to the point of hanging yourself on a cross so that you might put the members of your body to death so you will no longer serve or worship something other than God.
Ultimately we must fix our eyes on Jesus. The exact representation of the Father. If we are chasing after Jesus we will worship only God and we will not incur the wrath of God. But when you boil it all down we have to worship in spirit and truth, for these are the kind of worshippers the Father is looking for. Matt 22:37
Matthew 22:37 (NASB95)
37 “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
Worship no other god before the Lord our God.
Pray!