Untitled Sermon (5)

Who here likes festivals and concerts? I have to confess I used to not. I am not a crowd fan. I require a certain amount of personal space that is almost in line with the CDC Covid guidelines for social distancing. I think of events like Night Vision. My very first Night Vision was in 2015. I didn’t want to go, but Greg Loury was the featured speaker, plus Trish and I had just gotten married, and I wanted to be a good husband. A few of the artists that played were Francesca Battistelli, Crowder, Newsboys, and my favorite, Mercy Me. I loved it. The crowds of excited people, the bright lights and flashing strobes, clever lyrics, and talented musicians. WOW! It was amazing. All the worship music, all the praise, and all the people worshiping together! Worship was definitely taking place.

We can, and we do experience all this not just in a music festival (concert) but in our churches. Is all that excitement and emotions of the crowd worshipped? Is the worship time at church the only time we can worship God?

Pray

Let's read Colossians 3:16-17

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. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

What is the meaning of worship?

The old English origins for worship comes from worth and ship.

worth- significant, valuable, of value;

Ship “quality, condition” which would be a state of being or existence.

Combined worth and ship gives the word its sense of “reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being."

For us as Christians, it is more than that.

Louie Giglio explains it this way, “ Worship is our response, both personal and corporate, to God for who He is, what He has done; expressed in and by the things we say and the way we live.”

Is there a right way to worship?

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Is it only here in church together?

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Do you continue to worship God with everything you do?

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Now the hard question, what is it you worship outside of these walls? Is it your job, is it your car or home? How about your kids, do you find yourself worshiping them?

How Not to

Idols

Exodus 20:2,3 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me”

This simple statement, the very first of the ten commandments is very clear. We have one God, The Lord, and that is it. We are not to have any other gods.

We create Idols in our lives. I think it is pretty safe to say none of you have a golden calf in your yard, but I would be willing to bet we all have some type of idol in our lives that we worship in some way. We may not bow down before them as the Israelites worshiped the golden calf, but we devote our lives and pay homage to things in our lives we do not even realize we are doing it.

I found myself doing it at school. I found myself worshiping all-mighty A. For you kids out there, you need to get good grades. I need to get good grades, but I found myself being devoted to what the grade represented rather than to God, God’s plan for me, and what God wanted me to learn. I was focusing on the grade rather than the material being taught. When I caught Covid and started to miss lots of classes, it was no longer about getting the A. I was beginning to wonder if I would even pass. I had to have a change of heart. No longer was I focused on just the A, but what it was I needed to learn. I had to put aside the grades, my idol. I had to refocus and praise God for the knowledge I was gaining and that I would learn what he has planned for me.

What is it you worship? So what is it you are worshiping in your life? Sometimes it is really hard to admit that we have created idols in our life and that we are paying homage to them. One of those areas in my life that I was worshiping at a time in my life was my job. I am not going to tell you all the details of that and tell you of situations of how my job became my idol that I worshipped. I am instead going to talk about how you can worship God while at work.

Individually

At work

Col 3:23,34 “ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

In this passage, Paul is speaking to the slaves of the time. He is instructing them to do their work not just to avoid rebuke or punishment for a job done poorly, but do their work in a manner as they were working for God, not for his master. The attitude comes not for earthly rewards, but from the inheritance that will come from Lord as the reward. It is the same attitude we should have with our work.

We are not slaves, we may joke that it feels like it at times, but we are not. So if the slaves can worship God in their circumstances, we should be able to also?

At times we feel stuck in the drudgery of our day. Getting out of bed, going to our job we don’t especially like, and doing the same thing day after day. Dealing with the same problems and people day after day after day. I know, I have been there. I get it! This message is not just your job, it is also about how we do our chores, our studies, any type of work we do. Even if you love your job, are you remembering to praise the Lord by showing your love for him with all your heart with the work you are doing?

The question that comes to my mind is how do we worship at work? I turn to the bible and the answer that comes to me is, “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. Love is not just a feeling, it is an action. It is something we do.

God has provided you with the job you have. Everything that you have, this includes your job was provided by God. So instead of dreading your job with a closed and hardened heart, open it up and give praise to the Lord and do your work for his glory. This is the doing part of love.

We also can worship God in how we treat our employees, co-works, and customers. As Jesus said, “The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor.” When we open our hearts and treat others as Jesus teaches us, the light from him shines through us while we work for others to see. It is when you open your heart and let the light of Christ shine from you that your work becomes an act of worship pleasing to God.

Ya know, it’s quite easy to stand up here and tell you you need to worship God while you work, I can't tell you specifically how to do it, but I can tell you what it looks like.

1. Open your heart so that the work doing brings Glory to God

2. Trust the Lord without wavering

3.Remember and depend on God’s unfailing love – the gospel

4. Publicly praise God and tell others of the great things he has done

5. Genuinely love God’s presence and fellowship

6. Maintain his character

By having a proper attitude toward your work, keeping your heart open to the Lord, and glorifying him through your work, you are worshipping him.

At play

I think we all have heard Western Colorado referred to as God’s Country. It is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and Trish would say that Western Nebraska is a close second.

In all seriousness though folks, who has not stopped to look up at the mountains and stare in awe at the utter beauty of God’s creation? I know I did as we drove here the other day. How can you not worship God after seeing such beauty?

All though we are not seeing God himself, we are seeing the work of his hand, the evidence of his existence and power. The beauty we witness is nature itself proclaiming the glory of God. King David acknowledges this in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands”.

Is not being outside in nature a perfect place to stop and worship God for what he has done? Looking at the tree that is growing in the crack of the cliff. The contrasting colors of the red sandstone cliffs and green trees of the Colorado National Monument. Is this beauty not reason enough to stop and praise God for his creation?

Even in the vast sea of the Nebraska grassland, the beauty of God’s creation is present. The endless miles of grasses blowing in the breeze to the wisps of clouds on the horizon. The next time you find your self in the flat land or standing atop a mountain peak, stop and take it in. Open your heart and feel the presence of God. Give the Lord his due credit for what he has done.