Is Worship a Big Part of Your Life?

We are picking up today with our continued application of taking what we have learned in Revelation 17 and finding out how this applies to our life today. We learned all about the false religious system that has its roots in Ancient Babylon and how that is infiltrating its way into the religion people practice today, because it is simply the way they have always done it. So how can we be sure we are not falling into the same trap?

We learned that there are four things we want to ensure we are not doing. We only got to the first one yesterday which was never be unwise in your worship. You can read more about that here if you missed it.

When we do what we're supposed to do when it comes to our time with God, our hearts will kick in and we see God for who He is. "Things" don't connect us to God. It is the connection we have between us and God. It's the expression from our hearts that make these things acceptable, like bowing down, kneeling, lifting up your hands, covering yourself with a prayer shawl, etc. People have a tendency to look at us funny when we worship a God that we can not see.

1 Peter 2:4-9 ~ "As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stand in Scripture: Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." and "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

How we worship is determined by our heart. When you know Him more, worship will become a dynamic part of your life. It will be expressed different, but it will become important to you.

2. We never want to legalize worship. (Mandates never work.)

Mandating the acts and art of worship. It's not found in the Bible. Worship is a spontaneous and creative moment with God with you alone. There is a time to express ourselves. It is different for everyone. There is NO one way to worship, that is when it becomes legalized worship. Everyone doing it all the same way, all the time.

You are bound in a routine or legalism if you can't express yourself freely in worshiping God.

Romans 7:6 ~ "But now that we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code."

2 Corinthians 3:6 ~ "who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

3. We never want to sterilize worship (Establishing a form kills).

Is it possible that we have confused the holiness of God and the Glory of God with man-made formalism, and rituals. The order of how we conduct church service?

According to the Bible, there is no set way to conduct a church service, whether worship after the message or before the message. Just like people think worship time allows them extra time to not be late to church, as long as they get there before the message starts. They don't appreciate worship and God warns against this practice of robbing Him of it.

Malachi 3:8-10 ~ "Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you blessing until there is no more need."

Worship is all about Him and it is all for Him. Worship groups simply lead us in worship. They are not there for us to enjoy. Some people don't like certain forms of worship. They don't like guitars, they don't like music loud, and I would caution you if that is you today. In fact research 1 Chronicles 15 and 16 today. This is radical worship you will find here in the Old Testament. You have sterilized worship when you say, worship needs to be the same way it always has been.

You're not growing up, you're growing older, spiritually. If you grow up spiritually, you become more like a child biblically. If you grow old in your growing up, you begin to sterilize things and it has to be cookie-cutter worship.

2 Chronicles 1:3-4 ~ ~ And Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon, for the tent of the meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness was there. (But David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.)"

For 100's of years, the Ark resided in the tabernacle of Moses, but David had the Ark of the Covenant, not in Gibeon but at Jerusalem, outside and away from Moses' tabernacle. It had been sterilized by sin. David had made a new tabernacle. It was personal. It was new. It was available. It was where God was!

Don't save your act and art of worship for church on Sunday, give it to God and worship Him anywhere you want, in your car, at home, on a mountaintop! Remember that the Holy Spirit dwells in your life as a believer and our bodies are now the temple of the Lord. We don't have to go to church to worship Him. We can do it anywhere! No more sacrifices are needed. Jesus paid it once and for all with His blood, and that alone should be reason enough to worship Him!

4. We must never fossilize worship. (Holding on to the Past). 

Psalm 27:4 ~ "One thing I have asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, and to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple."

Notice the one thing David wants more than anything in this world. To worship and be in the presence of the LORD. Worship is the single most thing that we will be doing in heaven, time to practice that now!