Sunday, October 27, 2024

Real worship isn't Contrived

 Praise Jesus this morning, brothers and sisters in the Lord. I have this word from God this morning about true worship and how it isn't contrived, but it comes out of a very real place in our hearts. But in comparison, the worship that has been fabricated in church is very control, it is very set up, and that is why outsiders, when they see Christians, don't wanna be part of that because it's boring, it's the same thing that all the false churches are doing, and it turns away people that really want to know God. It turns God into religion. When I was in church, I was terribly bored with the worship. To most Christians, worship means this 30 minutes or this 15 minutes or this hour of music. It's boiled all the way down to just a guy playing guitar or someone leading worship, they say, on the stage. And, actually, what these Christians are worshiping is themselves. They're worshiping the stage in their church and those lights and whatever they set up their stage as in church. Now coming from a place where I was going to shows and listening to music that I thought was really exciting, no church music could do that. So to call church music worship, I thought this is incredibly boring. And a lot of Christians, they literally think that worship means, music. Praise Jesus everyone. I see your messages coming in here. But true worship, as the Apostle Paul wrote, is offering your body as a living sacrifice to God, being transformed in your mind. And when we worship God, it comes out of a very natural and very real place from our hearts. What I'd compare it to is this, If you've ever been to a national park such as Yosemite or some beautiful place, maybe the Grand Canyon, no one had to tell you to marvel at how awesome the scenery was. They didn't have to say, sit and soak in this awesome view for 15 minutes and worship it. They didn't have to tell you to do that. Now, God is so awesome that even his creation looks awesome to the extent that Native Americans will worship it. People that don't know the true God will worship it because they see that it's so awesome just naturally that they think it is God. And because either they're uninformed, or they don't care to know the true God out of the very essence of their being. They worship it, they soak in how great and how awesome you know, the rocks and the trees and the mountains are and the awesome sunset in the ocean. You don't have to tell anyone that surfs in California to go enjoy the surfing. Go worship it for half an hour. You don't have to tell anyone to enjoy nature that they love because naturally, they admire it, they soak it in. Why? It comes out of this very natural place. It comes out of this place where you want to, you desire that. But the creator of all of this nature, who people are just innately worshiping, they don't worship the creator because they don't know him. The creator, they've made seem boring and lame, and that you have to be manipulated to worship for even 15 minutes in a church setting. And the elders have to tell you, shut up during this time and listen to this guy and prepare your hearts through this music that we're gonna call worship for this 30 minutes. And no one really wants to do it. And then they get upset at you because you're not worshiping God during worship time, but you're texting on your phone during the worship time. And in reality, it's because you don't really care to worship a stage. You don't really care to worship religion. You don't care to worship the artist that's not as good as the worldly artists that you've listened to.  Worship is not music. It's offering your body as a living sacrifice. And when you get to know this God, the one true God that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob also worshiped, you won't be worshiping him because someone told you to, but because he is so awesome that you will fall down on your face and give him praise. No one has to tell anyone to enjoy and bask in the beauty of the great outdoors. No one has to tell you that. Why? Why do you just sit down and enjoy the majesty of the mountains and the great outdoors? It's because it demands that from you just by its presence. And if the creator demands that from you, how much more than the creator if you knew he was? The men of old who knew God, they worshiped him not through just music, not through just a piano, worshiped him and fell down on their face before him because they knew how awesome he was. They had a real connection with God. They in one way or another had an experience with God, and they worshiped him in this very natural way because of their experience. In the same way you can experience the creation, they experience the creator. And so what I'm posing to you is maybe you have not really experienced God. You haven't really got to know who Jesus Christ is. If you are thinking that true worship is what they are doing in false religion. If it seems to you to be boring, mundane to worship God, well, maybe it is because you're worshiping a false God and that is very boring. It's boring to worship a dead God, but there is nothing boring or lame or pathetic about giving worship and praise to the one true God. He demands our praise not because it's like someone that is selfishly saying, give me your praise, I deserve it. But when you see his presence and you're confronted with his greatness, you will by your very nature fall down on your face and give him glory and honor and praise because you will know in your core that he is worthy. We need to get to know the God of creation, the God that Abraham worshiped when he saw the stars. He was not worshiping the stars. He was hearing the voice of God, and he worshiped the one true God. When those early men, when those men of old, those wise men and people, they saw God's salvation. They fell down and they worshiped the baby. How does someone worship a baby? But they worship this child knowing that he was the son of man and the son of God. They worshiped Jesus not because they were told to worship him for 15 minutes, but because they knew the love and the power of the living God. Why did Thomas that once doubted and had no to little faith in Jesus? Why did he fall down on the feet at the feet of Jesus and say, my lord and my God and worship him? It's because he knew and he had this experience that this God has resurrected my God from the dead. And he fell down in worship out of this awesomeness knowing how powerful God was to save him. We also have to have an experience with God. We have to get to know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Get to know that Jesus is real, that he is alive, and not only is he just worthy of our praise or that he demands it, but know from the core of our being that that is what we want to do. It comes out of our very nature because God designed us to worship him, not to be worshiping just creation or people as if they are God. A lot of people go around worshiping their favorite celebrity or maybe worshiping a presidential candidate. And when they drive by in their car, they're like, oh my goodness. It was whoever. It was Biden. It was Trump. It was Obama. And they get so psyched because their favorite celebrity went by. No one had to tell them to worship or to praise or to freak out about how awesome it was that their favorite celebrity went by. Why is it not like that for Jesus? It's because you don't know who he is. If you knew who he was and that he was the creator of everything that you have falsely worshiped, then you would fall flat on your face and you would praise him and worship him not because he's just asking you to or pleading for you to, but out of your very nature because God created us, he created you and me to be people that worship God. Heaven is all about a place of worship. In heaven, everyone worships God, but not like they do in church. In church they have to force your hand to worship, they have to say: Shut up, stop texting on your phone, stop doing other things, stop being distracted, and start listening to this music, get the feeling of the bass, get the feeling of the guitar, and then lift your hands at this moment. It's very contrived. But in heaven, people worship God because he is so awesome. He's so awesome you will fall on your face and praise him and worship him. It won't make sense unless you get to know this God. Unless you get to know him, the best that you would be able to do is just bask in how awesome nature is. And that is only the canvas of what God has created. It's only his handiwork. But if you get to know the one true God, you will learn to worship him in spirit and in truth just as that woman at the well learned to worship the one true God. It's not about worshiping him in church. That's why Jesus said it's not about worshiping on this mountain or on that mountain, but it's about getting to know and worship God, the true worshipers in spirit and in truth. So are we truly worshiping God? Whether it is, through prayer, praising him, whether it is through seeing creation, giving him glory, whether it is through overcoming a certain situation in your life and you're giving God glory for that and you're worshiping him because he pulled you through a trial, a tribulation, a hardship, he he gave you the power to overcome, whether it is through music, whether it is through a revelation, whatever it is God gives you, are you worshiping him because you're acknowledging him and you're seeing and you're hearing him in your life? Or have you been blinded to the truth of how awesome God is and you're only worshiping dead religion? I encourage you to wake up to the truth. Get out of these false revivals. The Christian church today is full of false revivals. They think that they're reviving people by getting 1,000 people together and singing, what they call worship music. And they get everyone all hyped up. They get everyone all high on these songs, and they Televise it, they make it look like something great is happening and they leave there and as soon as they leave, they're still looking at pornography. They're still sleeping with the neighbor. They’re still committing, you know, adultery fornication. They're still smoking pot and living on the world. They haven't truly repented. There's been no revival of their soul. It was all an outward show. It was all a cleaning of the outside of the tomb, the sepulcher. We don't need any more sepulcher cleaning. We need to wash the inside. The inside needs to be purged, and then true revival can happen from the inside out. But all of these Christians that are throwing these huge revivals, they are worshiping music. They're worshiping leaders. They're worshiping feelings. They're worshiping in the flesh, but they're not worshiping in spirit and in truth. And if we wanna see true change, it needs to happen by us personally getting to know how great and awesome this God is. The same way Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did. The same way doubting Thomas did, and Peter did, and all of the 12 disciples, and all of the early apostles and disciples. We need to come to really know and worship Jesus and fall at his feet, and then he can purge us and purify us and change us from the inside out, that we can be a changed man or a changed woman. And then with the renewing of our heart like the apostle Paul says, then we can really worship God in spirit and in truth. Are you a true worshiper? Do you really love Jesus Christ out of the place of your heart where you know he is an awesome God? Or have you been manipulated and controlled by the false church that has made worship into nothing more than a silly 30 minutes of playing guitar on stage and a light show? It has nothing to do with that junk. The light of the world is coming to you to save you from your sins, to purge you of iniquity, to give you a new life, to give you hope, and to show you what it really means to worship in spirit and in truth. Will you worship God with your life, or is it sufficient enough for you to be duped and blinded by dead religion? I hope this encourages someone to really put their faith in Jesus and awaken to what it means to really worship the awesome God we have. The same God that parted the Red Sea, the same God that told Noah to build an ark and saved, that group of 8 people from the sea that rose. The same God that resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead. The same God that can open the eyes and the ears of the blind and gives all his people the faith to also work miracles in his name? Are we worshiping this God together or have we been deceived by the devil of old who is constantly blinding this world, blinding Christians, making even Christians think that faith is boring? That is about religion and about serving yourself. The more that you chase after men and their ideas of what church and religion and faith are, the more you will go into blackness. But if you get alone with Jesus Christ and if you worship him in spirit and in truth, you will learn who God really is. You will learn how he cares for your soul and that you are as clay that he is molding to a new image, not the image of your old self, but the image of God that he wants you to be. He's gonna purge you of the old self and make you a vessel of honor that can worship him forever and ever because that's what heaven is about. It's about the worship of God. Are we true worshipers who will worship God in spirit and in truth, or are we blind? So, "Lord Jesus, I pray for those that have been blinded by religion, blinded by this world, blinded by false Christianity into into thinking that the devil is wonderful and that the God of all creation is boring. I pray that they can repent, that they can come into your truth and worship you in spirit and in truth and cast out demons in your name, cast out devils in your name, and that they would hold fast to their faith in you and that they would worship you out of the purity of their heart knowing that you are worthy to be worshiped, honored, and praised. I pray that we can worship you the same way that the nation of Israel worship you when they cross through the Red Sea, and they sang songs and rejoiced because they knew that you were an awesome God. We wanna fall on our faces before you and praise you and worship you and live for you, Lord, because you are the only one worthy to be worshiped and honored and praised. In your name, we pray, Lord Jesus. Amen."