5 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
2 Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.
3 As a dream comes when there are many cares,
so the speech of a fool when there are many words.
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.
3 As a dream comes when there are many cares,
so the speech of a fool when there are many words.
4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. 5 It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. 6 Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, “My vow was a mistake.” Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? 7 Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.
Today`s passage is all about worship and what it truly means. Worship isn`t something we just do Sunday morning for an hour. If our lifestyle is contradictory to Biblical guidelines, that one hour of worship Sunday morning means nothing and will do nothing for us. Our actions and thoughts throughout the week need to be consistent with what we say we believe. We need to truly walk with God - we need to guard our steps (v1).
We need to listen. We need to listen to God. He has given us His Word for a reason. We need to read it. We need to meditate on it. We need to memorize it, store it in our hearts. We need to hear it preached. Worship is not just music. Music is part of it, but it`s not all of it. Worship is listening to the Word of God. Really, as you`re reading this blog right not, you are worshiping. You are pursuing relationship with God, you are listening to His voice. And one of the results of truly listening is that we are convicted in areas in which we have been sinning, without even realizing it maybe. By listening to God tell us what to do, we are so often convicted. And He does that to lead us to repentance and to an ever deepening relationship with Him.
Another aspect to worship is prayer - speaking to God. Mark Driscoll reminds us that we need to come to God in prayer like a child asking his father for something he needs.
We don’t need formal prayers. What we need is to bring our request to the Lord, as a loving Father, and speak respectfully and let him know how we perceive that we need him....We worship that kind of God who is a dad who loves his kids. And when we come to him to pray, we need to speak to God as we would speak to our dad – respectfully, but it doesn’t need to be formal. It’s not a business transaction and just because we use lots and lots and lots of words, doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to get our prayer answered. The answering of prayer is not because you and I can pray long-winded prayers that manipulate God. It’s us, as kids, asking a Father whether or not he will do something or teach something for us. And just like every dad, he’ll say, “Yes” or “No”.
Just like we do not give our children a "yes" answer every time they need something, God doesn`t either. Sometimes God`s answer is "yes", sometimes it`s "no" and sometimes it`s "not yet" or "later" - just like our responses to our children. And just like our children don`t always appreciate our answer because they can`t see the bigger picture that we see, we need to recognize that God has a much bigger picture than we can even imagine. And we need to trust that His "no" and His "not yet" is for our own good, and, more importantly, for His glory.
Worship can also involve vow-making. But we need to be so careful, we need to be so careful, not to make rash promises to God as we try to desperately barter for something we need. "God, if you`ll only do _____________, I promise I`ll read my Bible every day, memorize Leviticus and become a missionary". And God answers, and we forget about the vow we made. We need to be people of our word.
Can you imagine if we were all people of our word? If every time a man and a woman made their vows to each other in holy matrimony, they actually meant them and kept them? If, when parents promised to love their children and raise them to know the Lord, they`d always follow through? If friends always stood by their commitments to each other? It would be glorious! There`d be no divorce, there`d by no need for contracts or lawyers because people`s word would actually be worth something! And by huge contrast, we know that God`s Word is absolute. Every promise He has made He has fulfilled or will fulfill in the future. Every. single. one.
And lastly, and probably most importantly, we need to stand in awe of God. Worship begins and ends with giving God the glory.
the point of the church is to revel in the majesty of God.... God reserves for himself the position of giver. God gives you life. God gives you wealth. God gives you instruction. God gives you salvation. God gives you grace. God gives you friends. God gives you patience. God gives you love. As we understand how great our God is, it does transform our life. All of a sudden, it fixes the way we walk. We don’t wanna sin when no one’s looking because we know that this loving, great God named Jesus, he’s always with us. It changes the way that we listen because we’re not always about espousing our opinions, and our ideas, and our philosophies and our isms. We wanna hear God ‘cause he’s so wonderful to us and so gracious to us that we wanna hear from him. And it changes the way we pray, that we don’t need to come to God thinking we need to manipulate him and get him on our agenda. But, instead, we need to repent and get on his agenda. That we don’t need to cajole God and to bless what we’re doing. We need to repent of our sin and do what God is already blessing. That we don’t need to try and manipulate God, then, through making vows and promises and getting real serious. That we need to just carefully and humbly walk with him and follow through on the things that we’ve committed ourselves to. And that all of this comes out enough remembering the Lord.
Do you guys know that Jesus Christ is the one true God? Do you know that he loves you with an unending, and undying, and unyielding love? Do you know that in him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God? That anything you need to know for your life on earth, you can get from Jesus? Do you know that, not only that, he speaks to you through your life and through his Word and he just wants you to listen ‘cause he loves you so much? Do you know that because of sin, you and I are all naturally innate fools? That we talk too much, and we listen too little, and we’re on our own agenda, and we’re not following the Lord, and the Bible says, “Like sheep, we’ve all gone astray”? And sheep are dumb animals.
But, that Jesus has come and he has lived on the earth in humility because of his great love for us. That’s the majesty and the wonder of this God that he’s talking about. That God actually came here. He’s not some far away pagan deity that we have to guess what he’s like and manipulate. He’s a loving God who comes to us freely and graciously. That he lives without any sin. That he dies for our sin. That’s the majesty of God. That when Jesus died, all my sins, past, present and future, were all on him, and Jesus died in my place. That is majestic. It’s a stand in awe of God. That’s just jaw dropping. My God not only cares about me, the distance between he and I, he closes. He doesn’t make me do it through morality. Through reincarnation. Through spirituality. Through long prayers. Through being real committed. God just comes to me and says, “You’re sinful. I’ll fix that for ‘ya. I’ll die for your sin. I’ll rise for your sin. I’ll forgive your sin. I’ll give you a new heart, and new life, new mind. I’ll give you friends who love ‘ya. I’ll give you life to walk in. You can come to me any time you want. And you can talk to me and I’ll answer you like a loving Father.
And it’s interesting ‘cause when Jesus died, this temple that Solomon is speaking of, what happened to the temple curtain? Torn. From where? Top to bottom. From God to us. And at that moment, the presence of God is unleashed all over the earth. Jesus told us when he came, he said, “One who is greater than the temple is here.” You know what’s so beautiful now? If you and I wanna worship Jesus. We wanna talk to Jesus. We wanna sing to Jesus. We wanna pray to Jesus. We wanna hear from Jesus. We wanna confess our sins to Jesus; do we need to go to Israel? We don’t. We don’t. In 70 A. D., the temple was destroyed. Jews have nowhere to go to offer sacrifices. They have no priesthood. They have no place to meet with God because God took it away. You know why? We don’t need it anymore. We got Jesus. We can go to Jesus anytime, anywhere. Isn’t that beautiful? That’s how great God is....
It tells us in Corinthians as well that God has a brand new temple on the earth. Where is that? The physical bodies of his children. Isn’t that amazing? Where does God’s presence dwell? Where does God live? Where’s the holy, sacred place that he has taken up residence? In me. Can you believe that? That means wherever I go, church is in session. That God always goes with me. That God is always involved in every single aspect of my life. That when I’m hurting, God is there to comfort me. That when I’m rejoicing, God is there to rejoice with me and when I’m sinning, God is there to convict me. When I’m stupid, God is there to correct me. When I don’t know what I’m doing, God is there to instruct me. He said here’s the thing. Worship is about standing in awe of God. This is what God has done. Can you believe it? God did that for you. God did that for me. All we need to do is turn from sin and trust in him. That’s it. Worship is about standing in awe of God. And I tell you what, Mars Hill, worship exists in two forms. Gathered together on Sunday as his people, and scattered throughout the week as the Spirit of God walks out with the children of God, so that we can have church 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We could talk. Walk. Think. Pray. Repent. Sing to Jesus. Anytime we want.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Ecclesiastes 5:8-20
1 comment:
You know, I've never quite thought of the way we pray sometimes as trying to manipulate God, but it really is, isn't it? Yikes.
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