Worship - Aligns the Soul
Soul Nurture • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We’ve started this year a new series looking at Soul Nurture -
“Soul Nurture” refers to the intentional care, feeding, and strengthening of a person’s inner life—their mind, emotions, will, and spiritual condition—so they grow healthy, whole, and aligned with God.
Today we have been celebrating family, new life, and dedicating of children. These special moments can give us pause to take a moment to ask deeper questions — about purpose, values, and what really sits at the centre of our lives.
Whether you’re here every week or visiting for the first time, this message is for you. Because this truth applies to every single person:
Everyone worships something.
"When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything.” GK Chesterton
Worship isn’t just singing songs in a church building.
Worship is whatever receives our deepest affection, trust, focus, and sacrifice.
Worship is giving something the greatest of worth, of value in our lives.
Everyone Worships — the Question Is What?
In Psalm 42:5, David speaks honestly to himself:
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
David recognises something is misaligned inside him.
The soul — the part of us that feels, thinks, and chooses — gets pulled in different directions by life. Pressure, expectations, disappointment, fear… all of it can knock us off centre.
And that’s true for all of us at times.
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 4:23
23 So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.
When the soul places its ultimate hope in something that can’t carry it, something which may fail, something which is not eternal, the result is always the same — Anxiety rises. Joy fades, dissatisfaction, and peace and a sense of rest disappears.
So where are we today? What are we worshipping? What could be stealing our joy our peace?
What we choose to worship becomes an idol, a god.
Most idols aren’t bad things — they’re good things put in the wrong place with the wrong priority.
Romans 1:25 says
25 And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
That’s the heart of idolatry, trading the true God for a fake god, worshipping a god we ourselves have made rather that the Almighty God who made us - so what could these idols be that we worship?
Money
Money
Money is a big one. Jesus talked about money more than almost anything else — not because it’s evil, but because it’s powerful.
Money promises security. It promises control. It promises freedom.
But here’s the reality: money can never give peace.
Quite the opposite is true the great theologian Jim Carrey once said,
"I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer." Jim Carrey
10 Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.
1 Timothy 6:17 warns:
17 Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.
So the question isn’t do we have money — it’s does money have us?
24 … You cannot serve both God and money.
We will either worship wealth — or worship with our wealth.
20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Where is your treasure being stored today?
“Either we serve God and use money or we serve money and use God.” — Os Guinness
Hebrews 13:5 reminds us:
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
It’s getting the priorities right - the only one who can give us financial contentment is God Himself as He says He will never leave us nor forsake us.
So what else could become an idol?
Children
Children
Children are a blessing — Scripture says so clearly.
3 Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.
But even blessings were never meant to replace God.
Jesus said something challenging in Matthew 10:37
37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
That’s not rejection — that’s reordering.
Here’s the truth we need to hear gently today:
We will either worship our children — or we worship God with our children.
When children carry the weight of a parents identity, a parents ideals, or a parents deepest hopes, it’s too heavy for them. They were never meant to hold that pressure.
The best thing we can give our children isn’t a perfect upbringing or a problem-free life. The best thing we can do is to encourage them in encountering the true living God who calls them by name into His perfect plans and purposes for which He has created them. It is in not holding onto them tightly, but in giving them back to God - in dedicating them back to God.
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 gives us the right picture:
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.
Our calling isn’t to centre our lives around our children —
it’s to centre our lives on God and invite our children into that life.
The Bigger Principle
The Bigger Principle
And this applies to everything.
Success.
Relationships.
Comfort.
Good things like family, ministry, or church.
Anything can become an idol if our focus of worship isn’t the true God.
An idol is a good thing made everything and idols always promise what only God can actually give.
So what’s the antidote? It’s actively choosing to worship the real deal. God Himself who will never let us down.
Jesus said in John 4:23–24
“True worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.”
Worship isn’t about a place, performance, or personality.
It’s about realignment.
Romans 12:1 puts it this way:
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Worship is a life laid down before God.
Worship is about saying yes to Jesus:
CT Studd, a famous cricketer, turned missionary once said
“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him” - CT Studd,
Worship is about:
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
It’s about seeing who He is and what He has done for us.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“In worship, we encounter the living God. The Bible tells us in Psalm 22:3 that
3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
“God is enthroned on the praises of His people.” When we lift our hearts in true worship, we’re stepping into His presence.
God calls us to a higher elevation to give us a greater revelation — God wants to reveal Himself to us, for us to truly know Him. To see ourselves and others through His eyes. Worship helps us see life from His perspective, not ours.
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
So here’s the challenge: get your eyes off yourself, your plans, your fears, and off anything that has taken the place of God in your heart. Lift your gaze to Him. Let Him be enough. Let Him be your treasure. As Colossians 3:2 says,
2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Today, choose to worship the living God — not the gifts, not the blessings, not even the good things He’s given — but Him. Let Him change your perspective, your priorities, and your soul.”
“God is seeking those who hear His call to a life of worship. Those who heed are those who will walk in His presence. They will know Him intimately as He will manifest Himself to them.” — John Bevere
