Dynamic
Worship & Prayer
Mike
Royco reported this true story in the Chicago Tribune. A man named Bill Mallory traveled to India to
discover the purpose of life. But he
didn’t find the answer there. So after
returning, he noticed a sign at Chevron gas station that simply said, “As you
travel, ask us.” So every time he pulled
into a Chevron station, he would look to the sign and say, “I’m a
traveler. I’d like to ask you a
question. What is the purpose of life?” These were the real answers he received. The
first guy said, “Sorry. I’m new here.”
The second guy said, “I don’t remember anything in the manual about that.” Another guy said, “I’m not much for church
myself, sir.” One guy gave him a leering
look and a wink, whatever that meant. However, most people just gave him a blank
stare, cleaned his windshield; but he kept asking at all the Chevron
stations.
One
day Mallory got a phone call from Chevron Customer Relations. He said, “We understand you’ve been asking
our dealer questions and getting unsatisfactory answers.” The man suggested that he write out his
question and send it to Chevron Corporate with a self-addressed stamped
envelope. So Bill Mallory wrote, “What
is the purpose of life?” and sent it to Chevron Gas Company. A couple of weeks later, the envelope was returned. The only thing in it was an application for a
credit card!
If
you want to know the purpose of life, you’re not going to find it in a gas
station. You’re not going to find it on a talk show. You’re not going to find it in a self-help
book. You’re not going to find it at some seminar. If you
want to know the purpose of life, you have to either talk to the Creator who
made you and look in the owner’s manual.
You were made by God and you were made for God. And until you understand that, life isn’t
going to make sense.
Oftentimes in my prayer I will pray the purposes of our
church: Oh Holy God, give us
grace and power that we will fulfill the vision You have given to us. May we
impact our community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ by building a church that
is undeniably alive fulfilling the purposes of:
·
Dynamic
worship and prayer (Worship)
·
Radical
obedience to Your Word (Discipleship)
·
Life-giving
relationships (Fellowship)
·
Sacrificial
and Spirit-empowered service (Ministry)
·
Powerful
witness (Evangelism).
Today, we’re going to look at the first of God’s five purposes for
your life. Would you read the first verse in the sermon outline with me……….
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power:
for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were
created. (Revelation 4:11 KJV)
Notice
the phrase “for thy pleasure.”
The Bible says you were created for God’s enjoyment. God made you just to enjoy you. God planned
you for His purpose. And the only reason
that you’re alive is God wanted you alive and He gets enjoyment out of watching
you.
All through the Scripture the truth comes through that we were created to be
loved by God. Today let’s look at the
flip side, the first purpose of your
life & our church; God wants you to love Him back. One day Jesus was walking down the street and
a guy came up and said, “Lord, what’s the most important command in the entire
Bible?” Jesus responds, “Okay, I’m going to give it to you. This is the most important thing. If you don’t get anything else, get
this. This will summarize the whole
Bible.” Let’s read it together there in
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38 KJV)
Notice
“first” and “great.” God
says you’re supposed to learn to love me back. I made you to love you and I
know you. And I want you to know and love me back.
Now,
there’s a word for this. It is the word “worship.” Worship is knowing and loving God back. You might write this down. My first purpose in life is to worship
God. It’s your primary
objective. It’s your highest
priority. It is your number one purpose
in life. So what does that mean?
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your
spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1 NIV)
Now,
I want you to notice two words in this verse -- the phrase “in view of,”
and the word “offer.” Now,
I’m not going to go into great detail in this verse. But I do want to point out
two things. Write this down. First, worship is my response to
God’s love. Worship is just the way I react, I respond, to
God when He loves me. Notice it says, “in view of God’s mercy.”
God always makes the first move. God
doesn’t ever ask you to make the first move.
He always makes the first move.
He creates us. He saves us. He forgives us. He blesses us. He protects us and because of all these
things, we worship. And notice what we
do - we “offer.” That word describes worship.
Secondly,
Worship is giving back to God. He gives to
us, and we give back to Him. And that
brings pleasure to God. It brings
enjoyment to God. When your kids are
grateful that brings pleasure to you. Being
grateful to our Heavenly Father brings pleasure to Him.
What am I supposed to offer to God? What do you give a God who has
everything? He made the world. He made you.
He made the universe. What do you
give Him? I’ll tell you what you give
Him…you give Him your love. And He’s very specific about how to give it.
Notice the verse in Mark chapter 12, would you read this verse
with me? And thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and
with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. (Mark 12:30 KJV) This
would be a great verse to memorize.
God
wants me to love Him in three ways:
First, God wants me to love Him thoughtfully.
It says, “Love Him with your mind.”
God wants you to love and worship Him with your mind engaged. He wants you to worship Him thoughtfully,
know and love Him thoughtfully.
Second,
God wants me to love him passionately. He
says, “With all your heart and all
your soul.” I want you to love
Me passionately, because I passionately love you.
And
Third, He says, I want you to love me practically. “Love
Me with all your strength,” with your abilities.
You
see, the truth is that even though God created the entire world and the
universe and He created you, there are three things God does not have unless
you give them to Him.
·
He
doesn’t have your attention
unless you give it to Him…That’s loving God with your mind.
·
He
doesn’t have your affection,
unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your heart and your
soul.
·
And God
doesn’t have your ability,
unless you give it to Him. That’s loving
God with your strength. You have strengths and abilities because God gave them
to you. Whenever you take the things
God has given to you and you give them back to God, that, friends, is the heart
of worship.
Number
one, worship is focusing my attention on God. It
is focusing my mind, my thoughts, my attention on God. You know, in a lot of religions, the idea of
worship is to put your mind into neutral, sort of lose your mind to the
universe. But the truth is, God wants us
to worship Him thoughtfully. It takes
energy. It takes getting our mind
focused on God. Not just going through
the motions, but really, really thinking about it. This isn’t always easy to
do. Have you ever prayed on autopilot?
You know what I mean? You pray before a meal, — blah, blah, blah -- Amen?
And if somebody asked you what you just prayed, you’d have no idea. You just prayed on autopilot. Do you ever zone out in church, of
course not when I’m speaking, but sometimes, do you ever zone out in
church? That reminds us that it takes
energy and attention to focus on God.
You know why God wants your focus? God wants your focus because He is focused on
you.
Look at what the Bible has to say to us in Psalm 139 verses 1
through 3. (Psalms 139:1-3) O LORD, You have searched me
and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my
thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted
with all my ways. (NKJV)
God
has focused His attention on you.
Did you know that? That God pays
constant attention to you, that He never takes His eyes off of you. He never stops thinking about you. The reason is He made you is to love
you. He made you to give you this
attention. Attention is an incredible expression of love. And God puts His attention constantly on us.
Honestly,
the easiest thing to do in life for us as human beings is to lose our
focus. We’re not like one of those
auto-focus cameras that you might have, you point it at something and it
focuses. We have to decide to
focus. We have to choose to focus.
Now,
how do you do that? Well, you have to
realize, first of all, that we are very easily distracted. And there are two things that distract us
from focusing our attention on God. First we are self-centered by nature. These aren’t in your outline. You can jot them in a corner if you want
to. We’re self-centered by nature.
And the second thing is, we live in a
self-centered culture. A couple verses on your outline about
that.
(Romans
8:7) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to
the law of God, nor indeed can be.
(NKJV)
What
Paul is saying is that “Focusing on
yourself is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores
God, and ends up thinking more about self than God.” So we have to decide to focus on Him.
And notice the next verse; (Romans
12:2) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God. (NKJV)
Paul’s
message is “Don’t become so
well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even
thinking. Instead, fix your attention on
God.” We must choose --choose to
stop thinking about some things and start thinking about God.
Now, how do you do that? Well, first of all, you can start doing that
by just establishing a daily time with God.
I don’t care when you do it -- beginning of the day…middle….end of the
day…. just be with God. Talk to Him,
read His Word.
The Bible says in (Matthew
6:6) "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut
your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who
sees in secret will reward you openly.
(NKJV) Prayer is deliberately choosing to focus on God.
There’s
a second thing that you can do to focus on God, and that is develop a constant
conversation with God.
Look at the next verse in your outline. The Bible tells us in Psalm 105, verse 4, Seek
the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore. (Psalms 105:4
KJV)
Just think about Him throughout the day. You have to decide to do that. There are people who do that in a variety of
ways. One guy sets his watch to go off
every 30 minutes so when it beeps, it reminds him to think about God, maybe to
pray for the person he’s talking to. Someone
else who every time they get into their car, they use the first minutes of the
trip to pray. It just reminds them to focus on God throughout the day. Whatever you do, you develop this constant
conversation throughout the day.
As we do this, focusing on God has incredible benefits in our
lives. (PP18) (Isaiah 26:3) You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed
on You, Because he trusts in You. (NKJV)
When
you focus on yourself, the inevitable results are thoughts of worry,
insecurity, anxiety, guilt, fear, discouragement. But when the focus shifts from me to God,
from you to God, all of a sudden, you begin to sense gratitude and hope and
confidence and love.
Not only is worship focusing my attention
on God, it’s also
expressing my affection to God. This
is loving God with your heart and soul.
Do
you remember the first time you ever said I love you to somebody? Probably scared to you death. You had sweaty palms, stomach was in a knot.
You were all nervous…are they going to accept it or are they going to reject it;
would they respond in like manner.
It’s
risky to say, “I love you.” But the neat
thing about God is He’s taken away the risk.
He said it first. God said, “I love you.” God has said it in a thousand ways. He
created you. He’s taken care of
you. Even when you didn’t know it, He
was showing love to you. And God has
said over and over and over to you, “I love you.”
Notice
this verse, the Bible says, “We love
Him, because He first loved us.” (1
Notice
this next verse. God says, “I don’t
want your sacrifices -- I want your love!
I don’t want your offerings -- I
want you to know me!” (Hosea 6:6
LB)
Now, I want to you notice the word “love”
and the word “know,” because that is the first purpose of your life --
to know and love God. If you get that
done, you have accomplished the most important thing in life. God wants you to know Him and love Him
because you were made to be known and loved by God. The most important thing you can know in life
is that God loves you. And the most
important thing you can do in life is to love Him back.
Wouldn’t
it be good to say, “God, if I don’t get anything else done today, at the end of
this day, I want to know You a little bit better and I want to love You a
little bit more.” Because if you do
that, at the end of your day, no matter how bad the day has gone, and no matter
how many plans fell apart – if at the end of the day, you know God a little bit
better and you love Him a little bit more, that day was a success. That’s why your heart is still beating. The purpose of your life is to know and love
God, first, before anything else.
On
the other hand, I don’t care what you get done in a day, and if you check off
24 things off your to-do list and you accomplish great accomplishments and you
achieve amazing goals in your life; if at the end of the day you don’t know God
a little bit better and you don’t love Him a little bit more, that day, my
friend, was wasted. It’s a failure because
you weren’t put here on earth to check things off your to-do list. The first reason God put you on earth is to
get to know Him and to love Him back. So that is the first primary goal of your
life. And you do it by focusing your
attention and by expressing your affection to God.
Read
this next verse with me.
Notice
that word “passionate.” God is
passionate about you. He longs to know
you. He longs for you to know Him. He longs passionately for you to have a
relationship. You know, I’ve been
married a long time. How about if I
walked up to my wife one day and I say, “Honey, here are some flowers for
you. And I am giving you these flowers
for three strategic reasons: Point No. 1, I am your husband. Point No. 2, it is our anniversary. Point No. 3, husbands are supposed to give
their wives flowers on their anniversary.
So here.” Wouldn’t she be
thrilled? I don’t think so. Why?
She wants me to love her passionately.
She doesn’t want duty. She wants
desire. God doesn’t want your duty. He wants your desire. God doesn’t want – “Oh,
okay. I better go worship.” “Oh, I love you, God” [said in a computer voice].
God doesn’t want duty. He doesn’t
want ritual and religion and rules and regulation. He
wants a relationship. And He’s
passionate about it! And He
says, “I want you to love Me as much as I love you, because I made you and I
created you.
One simple way of expressing my affection to God is just saying “thanks.” Start looking around at everything and start
thanking God. “God, thank you for a beautiful sky today. That’s gorgeous.” “God, thank you for the trees.” “Thank you for clean air.” “Thank you that I’m still breathing.” “Thank you that I live in America and I have
freedom.” “Thank you that I woke up this
morning.” “Thank you that I had
something to eat.” “Thank you that I’m
not freezing to death right now.” You could go on and on. Everything you look at is here because of
God. “God, thank you for
electricity.” A lot of people don’t have
electricity. Everything you look at is a
gift from God. So you just start by
being thankful. You could probably think
of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of things just to start thanking God for.
That’s a good way to start expressing your love to God. There are more ways
that just music and singing to worship God.
The greatest way to express affection to
God is by giving your life to Him, by yielding yourself to Him. When you attend a wedding and you see two
people stand up in front of each other and say their vows what were they
doing? They were saying I give you my
life. I surrender myself to you. I’m committing myself to you. Why? Because that’s the essence of love. You can give without loving, but you cannot
love without giving. You have to give.
So when you say, “God, I want to express my love to You,” you say, “I
give You my heart. I give You my
soul. I Give you my life.” That’s the
greatest way to express your love to God.
Look at this first, Romans 6:13 NLT It
says, “Give yourselves completely to
God since you have been given new life.” Again, remember, it’s always a response. God gave us life through Christ and He says I
want you to give yourself completely back to Me. When
we realize how much God loves us then it is so very easy to love Him back.
Worship
is focusing my attention on God. It is
expressing my affection to God, and it is using my abilities for God.
This
is loving God with all your strength. Whenever you use your talents and
abilities for God you are showing Him worship and love.
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto
men; (Colossians 3:23 KJV)
Now,
if you get this verse, it will absolutely revolutionize your life. You’ll never be the same once you understand
this verse. Notice it again. “Whatever you do” – that means
anything – “work at it with all your
heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.” You see, you don’t have to join a monastery.
You don’t have to have a quiet time with God five hours a day. You don’t have
to come to church every day of the week.
You just change who you’re
working for. And when you change who you’re working for, your work becomes worship.
Now,
if you don’t get anything else I’ve said today, I want you to get this one
truth, because it will revolutionize your life. In life it’s not what you do that matters; it
is Who you do it for. The
most important thing is not what you do, it’s Who you do it for. You give it all to God. And all of your work can be turned to worship.
I
don’t care if you’re a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. You can do it for God. I don’t care whether you’re a truck driver or
a school teacher or a business man, a farmer, a nurse or whatever. God wants to know, “Are you doing it for Me?
If you’re good at repairing things, you go out and say, “God, I want to repair
things this week as if I’m doing it for you.”
And if you’re good at cooking, “God, I’m going to cook this meal,
whether it’s for my family or for a restaurant, as if I’m doing it for
You.” And if you’re good at filing and
organizing, “God, I’m going to file these things away as if I’m doing it for
You.” And that turns work into worship, and then you’re worshipping God with
all your day. Not just in church. God
doesn’t want worship to just be a church thing.
He wants it to be your whole life, to worship God with your life.
Notice this next verse, I love this paraphrase in the Message, it says in Romans
12:1a “Take your everyday,
ordinary life – your sleeping, your eating, your going to work, your
walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.”
There’s
that word again. We said “offer” is the
essence of worship. I’m offering my life
to you. Now, folks, this is where the
rubber meets the road. Living for God
don’t just happen in church. It doesn’t just happen in your quiet time with God
every day, of prayer and reading the Bible.
It also happens in the ordinary, routine, mundane, things of real
life. “God, I’m going to take out the garbage for You.” You can make beds to the glory of God. You
can milk a cow to the glory of God. You
can clean your garage to the glory of God – and some of you ought to! Everything can be turned into an act of
worship. Notice, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,”
putting your heart and soul in, as though you were working for the Lord.
Now, what if you said, “God, tomorrow morning, I’m going to get up and I’m
going to go back to work and it is the same old work I’ve been at for 10 years
or 20 years or whatever, but this time I’m going back with a new boss. I’m going to do it for you.” That will turn mundane, trivial things that
don’t seem to mean a whole lot into worship.
And honestly, that’s the kind of worship God loves. He’s into this kind of worship that says
“God, whatever I’m doing, I’m going to do it for You.” And when you do that, then your life becomes
an act of worship. You see, real worship is a lifestyle.
The truth is everybody worships something. You were wired to worship by God. He put it in your DNA. You couldn’t stop worshipping if you had to,
because it is part of being a human. Everybody worships something. That’s why you can go to any culture in the
world and find people worshipping. If
you don’t worship God, believe me, you’re going to find a substitute real
quick, even if it is just yourself.
Some of you probably enjoy the hit TV show “American Idol.” The sad thing is there are a number of
Americans who are worshipping idols of their own choosing. Let me ask you, what
are you worshipping? I’ll tell you what
it is. It is whatever you’re giving your
primary attention to, whatever you’re giving your primary affection to, and
whatever you’re giving your primary abilities to. For some its their career; or making money;
or retirement; or family; or a hobby; or carnal pleasures.
Listen
carefully…the greatest temptation of your life and the worst sin you could
possibly commit is to worship something other than God. Whenever
you love something more than God, you’re going to have chaos, conflict, stress
and problems in your life. Always. When I love comfort more than doing the right
thing, I always get into trouble. When I
love protecting my ego more than God and humility, I’m going to go down the
wrong path. When I love my reputation, when I love money, when I love pleasure,
when I love anything more than God, it creates all kinds of havoc in my life.
We know it is the greatest temptation because it’s the one Satan pulled on
Jesus. If he had had a bigger tool,
believe me, he would have used it. He
said, “Why don’t you worship something else?”
The biggest temptation in life is always going to be to worship
something else other than God, to give your attention, your affection and
ability to something other than the Creator who made you.
Now, the amazing thing is this: if we focus our attention and we express our
affection and we use our abilities for the one who made us, God says, “I’ll
take care of everything else. You don’t
have to worry about it. I will take care
of it all.” The
Bible says in Psalm 37, “God pays
attention and God delights in every detail of our lives.” Every detail.
Joel Morgan planned to visit missionaries in Eastern Europe. So he asked some friends what to pack. They said food snacks for yourself, because
there isn’t much to eat in the rural villages of Eastern Europe. As he walked through the grocery store, he
prayed, “Lord, what might make it through customs?” He picked up Reese’s peanut butter cups, some
tapioca pudding, some hard candy and gum, and some malt, some small cans of fruit
cocktail. When Joel arrived in Romania,
he stayed with a missionary family who were living in very harsh conditions,
often without heat and electricity. They enjoyed a very good evening of
conversation and prayer together.
As
Joel started to leave, he remembered the snacks he had brought for himself and
he had an idea. He thought, you know it
is only October, but why not use these snacks to celebrate an early
Christmas? So he got out his backpack
and began to play Santa Claus in their living room. He asked the missionaries’ two teenage
daughters, “If you could have one thing from the U.S., what would it be?” In unison, they said, “Candy!” “What kind?” Joel asked. The mother chimed in, “The girls love Reese’s
Peanut Butter Cups. But they are not
available here.” With a lump in his throat,
Joel pulled out the king size package and the girls began jumping up and down
laughing as they held their gift.
Wiping away a tear, Joel asked their mother, “Well, what item from back home
would brighten your day?” Now, this was
a big risk. I mean what if she asked for
a side of beef? She said sheepishly, “I
miss fruit, especially citrus.” Reaching
into his bag, Joel pulled out a can of fruit cocktail and mandarin oranges. Now everybody was laughing, and everybody was
wiping away tears.
After
a time of celebration, Joel turned to the father and he thought about pulling
out the few remaining items left in his bag and letting the dad make the
decision, two out of three miracles ain’t bad.
You know, why press your luck?
But something deep down inside Joel shouted, “Go for it!” And before he could argue with God, he heard
himself ask, “Gary, what is your favorite dessert?” The dad smiled and said, “You know, it’s something
nobody else in the world likes, tapioca pudding.” Joel nearly injured himself pulling out the
snack pack of tapioca pudding that God have prompted him to buy seven days
earlier and 4,000 miles away. What
followed was praise and worship in its truest form. Nine people crowded in a little living room
in Romania weeping, praising singing, thanking God, for a God that cares about
even the little details of our lives.
You
know, we could spend the rest of the day here and just share stories. Every one
of you who are believers, I’m sure, could share stories of little examples of
how God cared about details in your life, in the smallest needs. That
kind of God is worthy of our worship.
When you understand how passionate He is about you, how much He loves
you, how much He cares about every detail, you can’t help but love God. Do you know what you’re going to do in
heaven? The Bible says in heaven, we’re
going to give God our attention, we’re going to give him our affection and
we’re going to give him our abilities for all of eternity. And here on earth, God wants you to worship so
you will know how to worship in heaven.
Now, the greatest mistake you can make
in life is to miss your primary purpose.
The Bible says you were planned for God’s pleasure. You were made to know and love God. So I challenge you to make as the No 1 goal
of your life before everything else, getting to know and love God, because that
brings Him pleasure. You make as your
goal what Paul said in the last verse on your outline, “So we make it our
goal to please Him.” (2 Cor. 5:9 NIV)There’s not a better goal in life
to have than that one right there.