Idol Worship, Idle Worship, or Ideal Worship?

What is worship?

Friends from all types of church backgrounds, dancing falling on the floor, tongues, snake handling, never poison

Worship means to give something worth or to ascribe to it value. It means to put it in its rightful place. You ascribe worth or give value to something by how much of your resources you spend on it, resources like time and money. True worship is based on a right understanding of God’s nature, and it is a right valuing of God’s worth.

Worship is not limited to just singing hymns and songs at church. Worship is not even limited to just singing songs to God. Worship that is merely formal actions is unacceptable. True worship is a valuing or a treasuring of God above all things. Praise is the natural response of believers to God at all times and in all places, involving adoration in music and song. God himself assists believers to praise him through his spirit. Worship is turning to God in awe, praise and joy, as his people realize how wonderful he is. Prayer is a natural part of worship: to know God is to want to worship him and pray to him

Read John 4:20-24

Context:

The Samaritans and the Jews hated eachother. The Samaritans were half jew and half gentile, so the Jews saw them as half breed mutts. They both stayed in their own lands so they both built their own temples. The samaritans were guilty of worshipping the wrong gods in the past and the jews held that against them, even though the jews were guilty of the same thing. And so this conversation ensues

1. It doesn’t matter where (v. 21)

a. It seems like the best place to worship God, the most logical place to worship God would be at church. But that’s not the case, Jesus said that it doesn’t matter where you worship. And we must get out of the mindset of “going to church” and getting into the mindset of “being the church”.

— explain how were the church and the building is not, only the church when assembled, hence the word ekklesia

When we are together, worshipping God, it is corporate worship, when were alone worshipping God, it is private worship. and both are necessary for growth in your spiritual walk. You can worship God in church with your church family and you can worship God in your car or bedroom all alone.

Why do we do both? We worship corporately because it is pleasing to God and it is also a joy to see other christians praising God with you, it gives a sense of family and unity

Private worship is a time between you and God and it can be more intimate, you can cry out to God and pray to Him aloud without worrying about distracting the people around you

b. Find the right church with the right beliefs. Now obviously it does matter what church you attend and fellowship with. You want to be apart of a church that has the right beliefs. It wouldn’t make sense for me as a Christian who has baptist beliefs to go to a church that has pentecostal beliefs where they speak in tongues and handle snakes. The Bible says to not be unequally yoked. So it does matter that you worship the right way with the right beliefs.

1 Timothy 6:3–5 KJV 1900

If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

c. Obviously we also shouldn’t go to a party with drugs and alcohol and start blaring christian music. The reason that Jesus says it doesn’t matter where is because in that time period they were limited to where they could worship God, and that was at the temple and synagogue. But here and now in our time, we are the temple of the Holy Ghost and we can worship anywhere.

1 Corinthians 6:19 KJV 1900

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

You have the presence of God within you, treat yourself as the Holy place where God dwells. In the Old Testament when they had the tabernacle and then the temple and the holy of holies, they treated that place with the utmost respect and reverence, but now there is no need for a temple or tabernacle because you are now the dwelling place of God. Respecting yourself is an outflow of your respect to God and when we respect ourselves, we are worshipping God, because we are his choice children that He chose to indwell.

2. It doesn’t matter when (v. 23)

a. Since worship isn’t just reserved for at church, then we know it’s not just reserved for Sundays and Wednesdays. Worship should be an everyday occurence.

It’s not something that should just randomly occur, but it should be sought after. Seek after opportunities to worship your God. You can praise and worship the Lord in every single circumstance in your life; even in the bad times. How can I do that? How do I worship God when everything is going wrong in my life? A couple of weeks ago we did devotions together on the book of Job. When Job lost literally everything and everything was going terribly wrong, he responded with Reverence.

Job 1:20 KJV 1900

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,

Job 1:22 KJV 1900

In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

There is a difference between Responding and Reacting:

Responding is calmly assessing and evaluating the situation and proceeding in the Spirit while relying on Christ, through faith.

Reacting is rushing to conclusions without a calm evaluation and proceeding in the flesh and relying on self.

Respond, don’t react

3. It matters Who (v. 22)

a. Of course we must worship the right God. Worshipping the incorrect god would be worthless. I don’t think any of us in here would be guilty of the same kind of idol worship like the Samaritans and the Jews were, praying to statues and offering the statues sacrifices and what not. But if we worship things by giving them our resources like money and time, then we can self evaluate what we are worshiping by looking at what we spend our resources on. What do i spend the most time doing? what do i spend the most money on? Maybe its video games, or sports, or maybe its even another person. Anything that I spend more resources on than God, is an idol in my life.

So we can be guilty of Idol Worship, but we can also be guilty of Idle worship. Idle or idleing is like when youre in the car and its running, but it wont move, its just not going anywhere. Its not accomplishing anything. Idle worship is when we just go through the motions. We sing the songs but we don’t think about the words and were not really singing to God. Its when we don’t keep our gaze fixed on Jesus and Him alone. Its when we forget about God and don’t take Him into consideration in our daily lives.

I can avoid Idol Worship by spending my resources (like time, money, anything that requires a sacrifice) on God.

I can avoid Idle Worship by making a conscious effort to remember and consider God in every aspect and decision in my life.

I can have Ideal Worship when I worship God in Spirit and in Truth.

It matters How (v. 24)

a. So we know all this. We can worship God outside of Church, any day of the week, and we must of course worship the right God. We shouldn’t have idols. But how do we worship him correctly?

Well Jesus said that we must worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

What does it mean to worship in Spirit? What does it mean to in the Spirit, period?

The Holy Spirit is the most misunderstood and overlooked person of the Trinity, mostly because we just don’t know as much about him as we do the Father and the Son. There are a couple different things that the Holy Spirit does in our lives, and we must first understand these basic truths if we are able to understand what it means to “worship in Spirit”

Baptism of the Spirit- The first thing the Holy Spirit does in a person’s life is what is known as the Baptism of the Spirit. The word baptism means to be placed into or to be immersed. So when a person gets saved, when they put their faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection to save them, at that moment the Holy Spirit baptizes, or places them into the himself, the family of God.

1 Corinthians 12:13 KJV 1900

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

Filled with the Spirit- To be filled with the Spirit means to be controlled by the Spirit. It means denying self and sin and letting Christ dictate how you live your life.

Ephesians 5:18 KJV 1900

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;

explain^

To worship in Spirit simply means to be controlled by the Spirit in worship.

To worship in truth simply means to worship Jesus because he is the truth.

John 14:6 KJV 1900

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Worship is not limited to just singing hymns and songs at church. Worship is not even limited to just singing songs to God. Worship that is merely formal actions is unacceptable. True worship is a valuing or a treasuring of God above all things. Praise is the natural response of believers to God at all times and in all places, involving adoration in music and song. God himself assists believers to praise him through his spirit. Worship is turning to God in awe, praise and joy, as his people realize how wonderful he is. Prayer is a natural part of worship: It is pleasing to God when we pray, because it demonstrates our reliance and our dependence on Him. to know God is to want to worship him and pray to him

People express worship to God in different ways. Some may raise a hand while singing while another may kneel on the ground in prayer. David danced naked in a field praising god. but I wouldn’t recommend that one.

The best way that we can all universally worship God and express our praise to Him is by singing to Him. Not only by singing to Him but thinking and dwelling on Him, and His word, by praying to him and thanking him, by acting like a christian should.

It says in verse 23 that God seeks worship, He wants he desires for you to worship him!

It’s not just one decision today to worship God that will radically change your life. It is a daily decision, to choose to worship God every day that will change your life.

And you shouldn’t worship God just because someone tells you to or because you feel like you have to because you owe Him, You should praise Him simply because of who He is and what He has done for you.

Heres the application right here of this whole message if you didn’t hear it. We should worship God consistently and constantly every day by being controlled by the Spirit: by singing, thinking, speaking, and acting in a way that pleases Him.

Worship isn’t just singing and it’s not just for Sundays, worship is a lifestyle, so live a life of worship.