connecting

Worship and Idolatry
Dan Barraco
3/29/09

 

Key Scripture: Romans 11: 33-12:2

Introduction:
            Worship is a worldview. It is bigger than any church department. It is what God created us to do. God has made us to worship. We will look at some of the most vital aspects of worship as well as some of the worst.

I. What is worship and why do we do it?

  • There are many divergent definitions. It means different things to different people. That is the continual conflict.
  • God is the one who decides what true worship is.
    • It is not our feelings. - Did you laugh? Did you cry? Did you feel something?
    • It is not the outward expressions that determine true worship? –Did you dance? Did you raise your hands?
    • It is not a particular style of music that determines true worship;
      • Hymnal singing, harp and bowl worship and intercessory prayer, the Song of the Lord, inspired singing, Baptist, Pentecostal, no instruments, lots of instruments, etc.
      • We may have a personal preference for a style of worship, but we shouldn’t say worship is good or not based on the style that we prefer to use.
      • I like many different styles, yet there are some I don’t particularly understand. I enjoy the style of worship in India, Africa, Italy, and the complex style in England.
      • So are there ‘worship wars’ or just ‘style wars’ in the church? It is more about styles than anything else.
      • We can feed our own self-righteousness by yielding only to a particular style of worship and leaving God out of it altogether.
      • Our style can become idolatry, and any of us can be led to idolatry which is not God- honoring.
      • We are not sanctified by style, but by His Word, His Spirit, and His working in our lives.
    • Is God glorified? That is the real issue!
      • True worship must be for God’s glory, our joy, and for the common good of all.
      • If we become what we worship, we’d better be giving glory to God in our style of worship.
      • Can you remember a time in your life when you experienced God in a very real way and worshipped wonderfully in that form?
      • That music, in that style, becomes important to us. We find that music rooted in our own spiritual history, our cultural style.
      • We then apply moral value to that style, which can lead to a form of self-righteousness.
      • It could even be a style of appropriate dress for church.. In a multi-generational church, we can give people the freedom to dress as they choose. We can all have a personal preference, but it should not be a source of division in the body.
    • When our preference becomes our prejudice, with regard to worship, we’re in trouble. What we define as ‘really God’ and what others find is ‘really God’ may be different. We need to check ourselves to see if we are really in ‘worship idolatry’
  • Romans 11:36- Romans 12:2 “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” This is an overarching context for discussion of the concept of worship.         
    • When we are giving glory to something, it is the organizing center to our lives. It is that which has the most preeminent weight(value), that which we most honor or cherish.
    • When we think of worship, we think of what is above all else, what we treasure most in our lives.
    • What can we not live without?
      • It can be a person, a place, an experience.
      • It can be a group, a community of people we associate with, a political party or issues, a blog site that we go to, a lifestyle, or a sexual orientation.
      • By looking at what we publicly declare to be ‘our team,’ we can see what we give an expression of worship to.
      • What do we sacrifice ourselves to? What do we give most of our time, money, and energy to? That is what we worship. We show what we worship by our schedules, budgets, and our interests. These are the things that we feel to be most glorious.
  • By definition, our church gathering time is not the only place where worship occurs. It is what we give ourselves to in our life.
    • It can be food, or a pet, a companion, sports. Anything that we are dedicated to and make sacrifices for, anything that we give glory to.
    • Christians and non-Christians are all worshippers. It is a matter of who or what we are worshipping. The only difference is a question of faith in Jesus.
  • The worship department is not just made up of singers, musicians, and technical people. It is made up of a worship community called the church
    • That worshipping community involves everyone in the life of the church.
    • That community goes out to minister:
      • to our children
      • to our youth
      • to every segment of the church life (or the community at large)
      • wherever God has gifted us, and given us a particular burden.
      •  I f we give our time to it, that’s a part of our worship.

 

II. What is the purpose of worship?

  • In it’s simplest form, worship is giving glory to God. It is also for our joy, and for the good of the community collectively.
  • God is the creator of everything, He needs nothing.

 1. We are dependant on Him. We bring nothing to Him that He doesn’t already own.
 2.  He isn’t lonely or frightened.

    • He isn’t in heaven, crying or screaming, “ Please somebody, please worship me.”

               4. We don’t worship God because He needs our praise, we get to worship Him.
               5. We come to God in worship in order to receive from Him.

  • What is propagated in the church today is self-esteem, self-love, self- aggrandizement, and self-help ideas of God. It is not just in the secular bookstores, but in the Christians bookstores, too.
    • There is an air of declaring and commanding God to do things for us. We told to declare that God has to do things for us because we have said things in a certain way.
    • We make God our heavenly bell-boy, who should be getting to our whims and demands.
    • We don’t tell God what to do. We make our requests of the heavenly Father. He grants our requests according to His Word.
    • If we see a  child commanding his parents to do things for him, to get him things, to give him things, to give him the car keys, or you have to buy me what I want, etc. we would want to correct that child.
    • This is not how believers are to come before the Father. It shows disrespect to God. It is even repugnant in the eyes of the world
    • We must come to God with humility.

III. What is the opposite of worship?

  • Idolatry is the opposite of worship.

      1.God is to be held in the highest position of the greatest glory
             2. Idolatry is the default mode, where we take a good thing, and make it a good          thing, and it becomes a bad thing. ie, we put something in God’s place in our life.

    • Romans 1:21-25
    • What are some of the good things that can be elevated to the position of God?
      • It can be a spouse, a happy home, a job, a sport, a good cause, a political party or political issues.
      • It can be sex: sexual immorality, a perversion, porn, adultery, etc All of these are not sexual problems, but worship problems. It is a worship issue.
      • It comes down to what you worship, what you’re willing to sacrifice time money and energy on. It is what you enjoy the most.
      • You can worship the body of  another person because they give pleasure to your own body. The body is good in the way that God has designed it to function, but if you take that good thing and elevate it to God’s position, it becomes a bad thing. Then you are worshipping a created being rather than God the creator.
      • People can be called a pervert, a sex-addict, a bi-sexual, a rage-a-holic, etc. but what they are is an idolater.
      • The industry of porn is a $10 million industry. More money is spent on porn than baseball, basketball, football combined. It is America’s favorite pastime.
  • Worship is more than a song written, practiced, and played in our lives!. It is a question of what we are elevating to a position of glory.

          “Worship is not an issue, it is the issue!” Mark Driscoll
                1.It is not just songs sung, but the exaltation of God throughout our lives.         Singing songs is only a very small part of worship in our lives.
                2.Behind every sin is a false God that gives comfort and glory to self.

  • There is a difference between having Jesus as your Lord and Master, and having Jesus as a functional savior..
  • Advertising gives us a life-changing offer, a functional savior.

                1.  It gives us our own personal definition of heaven or hell.
                2.  Things can become a functional savior to us.

  • If you are overweight, or single, poor, or driving the wrong car, being with the wrong person or people, not owning a home: then you can be welcomed to a new heaven and have all these things, if you will worship this functional savior.
  • If you do all this ad says, you can somehow  make it to your own personal idea of heaven. “I can have the best, the latest, the right thing, the right person, whatever I can imagine.”

IV. Idolatry will trap us.

  1. A false God promises to give us self-worth, to make our lives better, and to make us happy.
  2. What we love most will ensnare us.

               1. I want to be ensnared by God.
               2. Children and grandchildren are a blessing, but they make a bad God. A child can become a functional savior for some people.

  • Falling in love and getting married is a good thing. but when it becomes the compass that orients everything in your life, then that has become your functional savior. It has taken God’s place in your life, and you will be misguided and led off His course for you.

V. How can we uncover our idols?

  • Tim Keller, a noted pastor in New York City, gives some questions to ask yourself
    • What am I most afraid of, or what bothers me most?
      • Is it being single and lonely?
      • Is it failure?
      • Is it the approval /disapproval of others?
      • Is it being noticed?
      • (These  may indicate what is glory to us).
    • What do you long most passionately for? Is it God?
    • Where do you run for comfort? ( That’s a great indicator.)
    • What angers you most, or frustrates you most?
    • What makes you  the happiest?
    • How do you explain or define yourself to others?
    • What is causing you to be mad at God? Why? Could it be that your functional savior is not being validated by the real Savior, Jesus Christ? Jesus doesn’t want to share the throne with your functional savior.(your idol.)
    • What do you brag about?
    •  What do you want to have more than anything else? What do you sacrifice for more than anything else?
    • Whose approval do you seek most/
    • What comfort do you treasure most?

 

VI. How do we worship?

  1. There are gathered meetings and scattered meetings. Gathered events and scattered lifestyles.
  2. Colossians 3:16-17  “ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed. Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” This speaks about a gathered worship event.
  3. 1 Cor. 10:31. Speaks of a lifestyle of worship “ So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
  4. Worship is not inward or self-centered, but God-ward or God- centered.
    1. We are stuck in this perpetual loop of self; our wants, our desires, our glory, our own pursuits, our vision, as if God exists to serve us.
    2. “God doesn’t want us necessarily to be happy. He wants us to be holy.” Tara Freeman
    3. The world tells you that you need to be a winner, a conqueror, and that worship is for your glory, not for the glory of God.
    4. We exist for the glory of God. It is not that God exists for our betterment or glory. That is wrong and not from God.
  5. We can have false functional mediators.
    1. It can be our pastors or leaders or worship leaders.
    2. It can be our worship style.
    3. It can be our facility or location.
    4. It can be our emotions, our spiritual experiences.
  6. We should worship Jesus Christ.
    1. Rev. 5:8-14, 7:9-13, 15:2-4, 19:1-6
    2. In these passages we see angels, saints, men, women, martyrs, all worshipping Jesus. Jesus is the centerpiece of the book of Revelation.
    3. Jesus is worthy to be worshipped.  (Rev. 5:9)
    4. Our God is Jesus Christ. He is not just some spirit-being, some spiritual force.
    5. On the Oprah show they use the key words ‘spirit’,‘god’, the force of god’, essence of god’, etc. to get people’s attention.away from Jesus. Oprah was drawn away from the truth that Jesus is God, who is to be worshipped.
    6. In our gatherings, we worship together in the Name of Jesus. We declare that Jesus is God to the glory of the Father
      • We have our gatherings to extol the Name of Jesus.
      • We have our scattered lifestyles extolling the Name of Jesus.
      • If  we just say ‘God’ it does not offend anyone. The name ‘God’ means  many things to people.
      • But when we say the Name of Jesus, we make a declaration of whose team we are on.
      • Jesus never rebuked anyone for worshipping Him.
      • “We don’t want to have a Christ-less Christianity.” Mark Driscoll

 

Discussion questions:

What is the purpose of worship?

What is the definition of idolatry?

What are some of the things that you have tended to place above God in your lifetime?

What does it mean to you that worship is a lifestyle?

Answer the questions under section V. about how to uncover your idols. What did you discover about yourself?

Why is Jesus alone worthy of our worship? (see Rev.5: 6-10)

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