Worship and Idolatry:
Worship is more than the music portion of a church service.
The issue is not will we worship, but what, where, and how we worship.
Q. Why do we worship?
A. God created us to worship.
The English word, Worship, comes from the phrase ‘WORTH-SHIP.
The word “Worth” is synonymous to value.
The question of worship is what do I value most?
Matthew 4:8-10
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9"All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." 10Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'
Every human being by default is a worshipper.
The need to worship is ingrained in our very DNA.
We all serve a master of some kind.
We worship that which we obey.
Impulses, food, cigarettes, sex, family, mental strongholds, sports, atheism, politics, work, success, comfort, pleasure, ideals.
We serve these things because of how they make us feel or our perception of how they will make us feel.
Bottom line: We worship something whether it is God or ultimately ourselves.
We worship in an attempt to find fulfillment, wholeness, completeness.
We are born incomplete and we spend our lives searching for the “rest of us”. We are trying to fill a God shaped hole within us.
We all have an itch that demands it be scratched.
We worship to feel connected.
We are committed to what we worship. We give to that we worship; our time, our money, our thoughts.
We make sacrifices to the object of our worship.
We are dedicated to it. We serve the object of our worship
The opposite of Worship is idolatry.
Exodus 20:1-6 And God spoke all these words: 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before me. 4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.
· Idolatry is the worship of anything that is not God.
· The worship of created things rather than the creator.
· Idolatry is misappropriated or misplaced worship.
· Anything that you look to for fulfillment or contentment is an object of worship.
· Any and all fulfillment that does not include God is counterfeit, shallow and temporary and will eventually cause disappointment.
We worship idols because we are pursuing the illusion of control.
We believe the lie that we can be in charge.
We spend so much effort trying to control our life, our circumstances, our relationships, our jobs, our happiness.
Peace comes when we relinquish control over to God. This requires trust. Real trust. Our biggest mistake is that we don’t trust God.
Comfort is an idol.
· We seem to believe that comfort is a good goal.
· We want to feel good.
· We want to make more money so we can be comfortable.
· We want to buy things so that we can feel good.
· We want to get to a place where we can relax and take it easy.
· Comfort doesn’t satisfy.
· Comfort breeds laziness.
· We should pursue peace, rather than comfort.
· Embrace discomfort.
· Wholeness is what we really want.
Why do people worship?
We are pursuing the fulfillment of our inadequacies through our worship.
We are attempting to eliminate our sense of lack and incompleteness.
Our weakness compels us to worship.
We are seeking that which makes us whole and complete.
People seek affirmation and approval from things that can never give it to them.
People worship idols because they don’t understand that you can only truly find the “rest of you” in Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit.
The best thing you can do to win people to Jesus is to give them an example to look at of someone who had given themselves fully to God.
Marriage problems, Parenting problems, Overeating problems, Addiction problems, financial problems, are worship problems.
Anger, disappointment, frustration, fear, self-reliance, success or depression can all become idols. Even the church can become an idol.
Joshua 24:15
Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve...
...as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Deuteronomy 30: 15-20
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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