Worship God with your life. John 4:23-24
Notes
Transcript
Worship God with your life. John 4:23-24
"Life Is Worship”
Last week of a 3 part series on worship.
Read John 4:23-24
Pray
Explain Head Heart Hands
When we think about our Christian faith, one way to break it down is to think of our faith in 3 parts.
-Head, What we know, believe, and think about God.
-Heart, Our love, affection for and surrender to God.
-Hands, What we do. What comes out of our life.
Here is a little secret. Most of us have a major. There is one area that we are stronger in. Then we have a minor, an area we are decent in, and thirdly an area that tends to lag behind.
What would you say your spiritual strength is? (What is it you tend to major in)?
What would be your second?
What area do you tend to lag in?
-If you have a friend or family member sitting near by.
-What is their Major? What is their second?
When we worship God with our head, we think great thoughts about God.
When we worship God with our heart/affections, we are surrendered to the greatness of God.
When we worship God with our hands, we show by what we do that God is worth living our life for
.Here’s an early homework assignment,
-At lunch today, ask the person you are sitting with what they tend towards?
-Like many pastors my personality bent in my spiritual life is Head first, heart second, and I struggle with the hands part of worship.
-So this is a challenge for me today.
Today - That is not only what you do, but what also come out of our life in relationships.
We will ask the question, How am I worshiping God with my life? What am I doing? Pause
Intro David - One of the greatest worshipers of all time was King David. Most of the Psalms were written by David. The Psalms is the official worship book from God. The Psalms were written as worship songs to God.
One of the things that we love about David is that His heart for God was the size of the sun.
It’s hard to find anyone else in scripture who had blazing affection and love for God like David.
Not only was David that heart first kind of leader, but he was happy to get His hands dirty.
David figured out how to serve God.
Transition - And I am called to serve God as well. That’s our first point.
I. God calls me to do - to serve.
To worship God with my hands.
-AND DAVID served in worship to God in one of the most difficult of ways.
-While King Saul was failing as King, David was being secretly anointed as king.
-While David watched King Saul fail, He patiently waiting for His turn to be King...
-But he didn’t sit on the sidelines. He served.
David was willing to get his hands dirty. Yes, He thought great things about God & Passionately loved God...
-But David killed so many of Israel’s enemies that there was a country song about him in Israel.
Lyrics are in
I Samuel 18:7
The Bible tells us the farm girls sang about David & compared him to King Saul…
“Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”
David’s reputation among the people even before He became King was that He was savage.
In war, He was a cold blooded killer. He was comfortable with the slaughter of wartime violence.
But, this savage warrior was one who is considered one of the greatest worshipers of God.
Part of David’s worship meant getting his hands dirty.
How did he serve so well in such a difficult circumstance?
-He made the decision that God’s Kingdom was more important than his Kingdom.
-That God’s glory was more important than His glory.
-That God receiving worship through service was more important than any inconvenience serving would bring.
-Will you serve Him?
The challenge for you is to take your passion and knowledge of God, and use that to inform your actions what to do.
You can be a person who is strong, powerful and full of love for God. - and also be someone who is a person of spiritual action.
Transition - After becoming King David’s work with His hands didn’t stop.
David Brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.
-David established Jerusalem not only as the capitol of the nation, but as the center of worship of the Nation.
-The Ark of the Covenant (where God presided) was not in Jerusalem yet.
-The Ark of God was in a tent in the backyard of a guy named Obed-edom.
-David personally went to get the Ark of God.
-There was a parade of blood and worship that took place.
-As the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant on poles, every six steps there was a sacrifice made to God.
-The scriptures tell us about this parade.
15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
The Ark of God is walked up the wide winding mountain road to the city city of Jerusalem on the mountain top there is a trail of dead sacrificed animals like bread crumbs laying in its trail.
As the Ark of God enters Jerusalem David outwardly celebrates the splendor of God. He is leaping and dancing as he himself leads the procession, then at the resting place in Jerusalem David offers more burnt offerings to God.
-David didn’t stay on his thrown and order it done.
-He got out there and walked with the people and led the way.
David Worshiped God with His hands, his life, he got it done.
There are some of you here in this room who are naturally doers. You have been given the gift of service and you take action. You are great at getting your hands on things and getting things done.
-You have a gift. Use it.
What if David had not served?
-What if he had ignored serving?
-The boarders of the country would never be secure.
-The Ark of God would not have made it to Jerusalem.
-Later in 2nd Samuel we see that God gave David
the vision for the building of the Temple… that was passed to Solomon.
God calls His people to worship Him with action.
God is calling you today to take action. To not just be a consumer of spiritual experience, but someone who worships God through doing.
For someone like myself that is more head and heart oriented, one of the best things I can do is after a youth event is wipe down tables and take out trash.
One of the best things I can do is build relationships by giving away garden vegetables I have worked to bring to harvest.
-God has called all of us to physically serve.
-You have people that live on your street that need you to physically serve them. To help them.
-There are ministries here at this church that you can be involved in and serve in.
-One of the best ways you can connect relationally to others is to serve with other people.
-Sunday School classes, One great way for your class to grow your closer relationally is not just to have a social (which is good), but to serve together.
-Doers make an impact for God’s Kingdom!
James asks this question (James 2:14
-What good is it if you claim to have faith, but it doesn’t come out in serving?
The Answer - Not good at all. It’s a worthless faith.
Conclusion - God has called you to worship Him with your hands.
Transition - David’s life was a life of worship. We see He worshiped with His hands & also His relationships.
II. God calls me to worship with my relationships.
Read I Samuel 18:1-5
A. David and Jonathan
David had a spiritual man in his life that he deeply cared for - who was a support to him
-There souls were knit together.
-They would talk about anything and everything.
-David wrote much of the Psalms.
-Don’t you know that these men shared spiritual life together.
(Illustration - Steve and I in High School.)
-You need people in your life who you share spiritual life with.
Transition - Notice who this man was. He was a man outside of His family.
As important as spiritual relationships in your family are. It is also healthy to have spiritual relationships outside of your family.
Why would I say that? Your family has wonderful strengths - Yes.
BUT - Your family also has blind spots. Blind spots in their relationships, how they handle money, and spiritually.
When you have both spiritual relationships inside your family and outside your family you get the best of spiritual influence.
When you spend time with a spiritually growing person from outside your immediate family, you are challenged in your areas of weakness. You influence them in your areas of strength.
We need spiritual relationship. Peter had James and John. Paul had Barnabas and Timothy.
Transition - As I was thinking about close biblical relationships, I couldn’t help but think of Naomi and Ruth (from the book of Ruth)
Naomi was the mother in law to Ruth. This relationship did not start off spiritually close.
-Ruth didn’t worship the god of the Bible. She worshiped pagan gods. Naomi and Ruth were not spiritually on the same page.
Naomi, the mother in law, lived outside of Israel in Moab - Ruth’s home country.
-Everyone around worshiped pagan gods.
Over time, Naomi begins to influence Ruth. Their relationship grows close.
Something terrible happens, both Naomi and Ruth unexpectedly loose their husbands.
Naomi the Mother in law tells Ruth to go back to her parents home where she will be taken care of.
Ruth responds to Naomi Ruth 1:16-17
Ruth decided she would follow the one true God.
She would become a worshiper of the God of the Bible.
God used the relationship with Naomi to change the heart of Ruth.
Evangelism took place - deep in the Old Testament.
-Your relationships are meant first to draw others to Jesus.
-Your relationships are meant first to point others to the Savior.
-Both in and out of your family.
-Your relationships are how others see how much you love Jesus.
-God desires your relationships not just to be for fun. Not just to be for support, but to be a light that cannot be ignored, where others see the love of Jesus not only by what you do, but by what you say.
God calls me to worship with my relationships.
Transition - There is one final piece in David’s life that brings us to one of the greatest acts of worship you could ever do.
Story tell.
-One day from the rooftop of his Kingly home David saw a woman named Bathsheba bathing.
-He took her & slept with her while her soldier husband Uriah was out fighting for David. Long story short, Bathsheba became pregnant & David has Uriah murdered.
David was a adulterer and a murder.
This great warrior & worshiper fof God became a massive spiritual failure before God.
I believe this story is in the Bible for every person in this room.
You see, every follower of Jesus will have some kind of spiritual failure in your life.
-Not necessarily adultery or murder, but some kind of situation where you really let God down and choose to sin over loving Him.
Stories about the failures of our spiritual heroes are in the Bible for you.
Later, when David was confronted about his sin by Nathan the prophet David confessed His sin and ran quickly back to God.
David (and this is our last point) worshiped by getting back up after spiritual failure.
III. I worship by getting back up after spiritual failure.
-When you get back up after falling into sin your life says 3 things.
A. I was wrong and God’s holiness matters.
B. The God I serve is loving, merciful, and gracious.
C. He is worth turning to and living for.
Turning back to God when we have failed is worship, because our life makes a statement about God’s great worth.
Closing.
Maybe you are that person today that needs to turn from the sin that is wrecking your life and find forgiveness in Jesus.
-If you are a Christ Follower, would you confess to the Lord your sin and come back to Him right now? He will happily have you.
-If you have never before trusted Jesus as your Savior, He would love to have you come to faith in Him. If there is a stirring in your heart that is God drawing you to Himself, His love, and forgiveness.
-Would you right now, tell the Lord in your heart. Jesus I fully trust that you died for my sins. Please forgive me now.
-Can I encourage you. Because of your faith - You’ve been forgiven.
Let’s pray.
VOTE ON JOHN and KATIE HALE