| “Men's Worship and Praise” |
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10/07/2001 Let’s have a word of prayer: Father we do ask that this day would be a day of enjoyment, a day of celebration, a day of worshiping you. Father we thank you that you are highly worthy of our worship. Father you are more worthy of our worship than we can even imagine. We don’t even know how to worship you properly because our songs pale in comparison with who you are. Because you even give us the ability to sing a song, you give us the ability to understand the words, you give us the ability to have the voice to sing and ears to hear. So Father all that we have is yours. So we truly give out of your hands. So Father this morning we pray that you might help us to give our worship to you out of your hands because you are so worthy of it. In Jesus Name, Amen. In John 4 Jesus said, ‘A time has come, has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for they are the kind of worshipers that God seeks’. What does that mean? To worship God in spirit and in truth. Jesus is saying that the way we worship is not important, our hearts are what are important. God isn’t looking for lip service or patronage, he is looking for people who will worship him sincerely and honestly from the very depths of their being. God wants our worship from a complete, cleansed, and surrendered heart. A heart that is true, a heart that is being transformed into his temple, a heart that has been filled with the Holy Spirit, for scripture tells us that it is only by the Spirit of God in us that we call him Father. And it is only by the spirit of God that we can declare that Jesus Christ is Lord. All the rest of our spiritual activity springs from those declarations of worship. Because unless God is our Father and Jesus is our Lord we can do nothing for God. He is not looking for worship activity, he is looking for people. Two spirituals worshippers that have a true spiritual relationship with him. Are you looking for God? Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. That plea, Thy kingdom come, can be a real cry of desperation for us at times. And the prayer, ‘Thy will be done’, is a pray of surrender. Are you desperate for God’s kingdom? His rule ship come into your life right now? Are you seeking his righteousness in a particular situation? Are you waiting for God to rescue you? Are you ready to surrender to him? Are you looking for God? Jesus told us that the Father is looking for worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. Do you hear that? The Father is looking for worshipers. So if you are looking for God and just can’t seem to find him, then stop what you are doing and worship him and he will come and find you. In Exodus Chapter 33 and 34 tells us of an encounter that Moses had with God. When Moses worshipped in God’s presence he reflected the glory of God. In fact when he came down off the mountain, he had to put a veil over his face because of the radiance of the Lord. But 2 Corinthians 3 says this, ‘We are not like Moses who put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from looking at it while the radiance was fading away’ But whenever anyone turns to the Lord the veil is taken away and we are unveiled with faces that reflect the Lord’s glory. We are being transformed into his very own likeness, with ever increasing glory. If we want to be Godly people then we must spend time in God’s presence. Because as we worship in his presence not only do we reflect his story as Moses did, we are actually in the process of being transformed into his very own image. We are becoming more like him. Before we ever knew him, while we were unlovable, he loved us enough to become one of us. Do you love him enough to become like him? The prayer and desire of every Godly person is to become more like Christ in heaven. In fact that is the meaning of the word Christian. It means little Christ, the heart of God is to conform us into the image of his son. In Hebrews 1 we read, that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory, the exact representation of his being. In Colossians 1, we are told that he is the very image of God and that it is Christ in us that is the hope of glory. If we want our lives to be a reflection of God’s glory and we want to cultivate the life of Christ in ourselves . John the Baptist said, ‘You must increase but I must decrease because the more Christ in us the more we will be a reflection of God’s glory’. Jesus said, ‘You did not choose me but I
have chosen you’. God continues to make choices today. God chooses the
foolish things in the world and puts the wise to shame. He chooses the
weak things of the world to put the strong to shame. He can not be
contained but he chooses to dwell in our hearts. He can not be defined yet
he chooses to delight in our words of worship. He makes all the rules yet
he chooses to love us without condition. He is more powerful than all the
forces of nature combined yet he chooses to be moved by the prayer of a
child. He is more than like himself, he is what all else is trying to
describe and it is this God who chooses to seek us. |