Worshipers ~ 02-05-07Gabby (a guest speaker from Lebanon)
We are going to bring out the worshiper that is inside of us. Each one of us was created to be a worshiper. This is not my idea; this is a very biblical idea. God created us to be worshipers. What we need to do, is we need to help this worshiper come out. This is something that happens on the inside. I cannot make you a worshiper, but I can encourage you to be a worshiper.
Worship comes from the inside. If you don’t fix things on the inside, you can’t worship. That’s why I can’t just tell you how to worship. If you don’t know God enough, you can’t worship Him. What do you mean do I know God? Of course I do. But I’m not just talking about knowing who God is. I’m talking about knowing Him. If you walk down the street in the Middle East, 99% of the people will say they know God – but most do not know who God is. If you don’t know Him, you cannot worship Him. If you don’t know Him, your worship will be more of a religious act, because you grew up and were raised in a Christian family. So you need to know God well. You will learn about the Character of God and who He is. I believe this week will help you to know God and to worship Him.
Every day when I wake up in the morning, I proclaim this and remind myself, “God is good.” Because if you don’t believe in the goodness of God or if you even doubt that just 5% - you might think, “how could I love this God?” – I can assure you that you would not be able to worship Him right. Because how can you worship someone who you can’t trust? How can you worship someone who isn’t enough? You would be worshipping out of fear or obligation.
We need to worship every day. Why? Because we are human and we forget easily. It’s like King David, “Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” I keep reminding myself every day, all the benefits of knowing God.
Mth 2:1-11 An example from the Bible of people who know of God but don’t know Him. The Magi were not Christian – they were not Jews. They worshipped the stars. So they went to Herod and shared with him that they believed the King was born. Herod was king of Jews. But he had no idea what the stars meant or that a king would be coming, although as a Jew he was supposed to know that the Messiah was coming. So he called the chief priests and the scribes to inquire. So they said, “yes, of course, we know the verse!” And they quote it. They know the verse, but they don’t know the Father, who wrote it. So we might know the Bible by heart, we can quote from it, maybe we read it daily, but this does not make us a person who knows the Living God. Because if you are a person who studies, reads, and memorizes a lot – you can go into a discussion and beat anyone – but that does not make you a friend of God. By the end of the picture, we see only the wise men worshipping Him. The priests and scribes remained at Herod’s castle. So we need to know Him to be able to worship Him. You need to know Him in person to be able to worship Him. Why am I saying this? Because I want you to seek to know God. I want you to change the way you think – to change your mind, “I don’t want to know about Him, I want to know Him.” Don’t do this throughout the school – just fill out papers about God. Of course I want you to take notes, but what I’m saying is I want you to seek to come closer to God – to know Him. So let your prayer be like this, “Lord I want to know you in person. I want to know what you like and what you don’t like. I want to know how to make you smile. I want to see you face to face, Father.” One of the most beautiful pictures that God gives us to describe Him – we are the bride and He is the bridegroom. What a lovely relationship. I just think about how much I love my wife, because sometimes we love our wives more than our Heavenly Father – or loving our husbands more. Imagine my relationship with my wife, doing things just out of obligation. Imagine the alarm going off, “oh, it’s time to call her and tell her I love her again.” And then later, “I love you but I’m tired and I’m not sure if I can tell you I love you – but I love you.” If we can’t treat our wives/husbands this way – how about God? We treat Him the same way sometimes. We wake up in the morning, “hello, it’s time for quiet time.” – “oops, time is up. The school said there’s only 1 hour for quiet time.” You know the Bible speaks about the Lord, that He laughs and likes to have fun with us. The Bible speaks about Jesus that he cries and has tears sometimes. He gets sad, He gets angry, He loves, and He hates. He is a person. So why do we treat Him like a thing? So if we don’t understand that He’s a person how can we worship Him? We would be bound. I won’t speak about that today – but I will speak about worshipping Him, free.
Judges 6:1-24
Sometimes people miss the first verse and they say, “Where is God? Why does He do this?” It is because they did evil in the eyes of God. In the Kingdom of God we have laws. We cannot break laws.
When God is not clear in your eyes it is not because He isn’t God. It’s because you chose to do evil in His eyes. So that’s what the Israelites did. They did evil, and then had to run and be in the mountains. They would plant and work hard and at the end of the day they would have no food to eat. They would be fruitless. Instead of asking, “what’s wrong?” they were adjusting to this situation. Although we see, and Gideon knew, that they had been promised a better life. And they heard all these stories of how good God was and what He has done for them. But knowing these stories did not help them – why, because they did evil in the sight of the Lord. There are many people that go to church and worship other gods. They worship sex, or power, or money – there are many idols on their altars. I want you to understand, at least, that this could happen to you when you do evil in the eyes of God and then do nothing about it. When you adjust to your situation – or when you put on a mask. You know deep in your heart that something is wrong but you choose to ignore it. Instead of just repenting, and fixing things, you just ignore it. And many of you are there now. And maybe some of you are even worse. And you’re crying out, “Lord! Where are you?!” Instead of having celebration, or times of worship, or an intimate time with God – you’re just angry with Him. You can’t worship. You can’t praise. You can’t rejoice, because there is a deep hurt inside of you; there is a cry inside of you, “Lord, where are you? Where are you?” God’s mercy is so great; it’s new every morning. Even while they were living away, ignoring Him, when He cries out to them, he sends them a prophet. A prophet has the word of God.
We need to remind ourselves of God and His goodness every day. When you wake up, don’t just get up and have a coffee. Start reminding yourself of what God has done for you the day before, or what He is doing.
When you keep your eyes on Jesus, when you keep your eyes on the Lord, it’s easy to praise Him. And when you praise Him you see a new dimension of God. And when this new part of God comes over you, your faith will grow! And when your faith grows – things will happen in your life! When you take your eyes away from Jesus, your mind will be full of doubts. It’s very easy to come and just put lies in your mouth. If I keep my eyes on my friend, even if you tell me his friend is white, I will say, “no, it’s black.” But if I leave and you call me up and say, “his hair changed in a day. It’s white now.” I wouldn’t know. I would doubt. I would wonder, “is his hair white or is it black?” So God did a lot to remind them what He did for them in the past.
Today I want to encourage you to change. And when the Lord brings His words over you – act.
“Thank goodness the pastor is sick. I don’t like his preaching.” It’s not about preaching and filling your head with knowledge. When you go home, what are you going to do with these notes? Are you going to go back and live a normal life again? Or are you going to say, “Lord, I want to change. Help me Father.” And this change will not happen in a day. It may take a year, two, three, I don’t know. So this prayer should be every day, “Lord I want to change.”
And we see people back living in the caves. And one of these people was Gideon. He came back to get some wheat. I heard people say that Gideon was a mighty man of God. But he wasn’t. He was a coward, just threading wheat, secretly. He was not facing the Midianites. He was not facing the situation. He was secretly trying to live, to survive. He was a person full of doubts. He was a person who was far away from God. Even when an angel appeared to him, he was still doubting God. Why do people say he was mighty? Because God said he was mighty. God called him to be mighty.
People ask me, “why do you do this? Why do you go on the streets and share with everyone your relationship? Why don’t you just pray for a miracle – that God would just appear to everyone? Because if He appeared to everyone then everyone would believe. But this is not true. Many times I have prayed for people and they do not believe.
It’s very easy to be doubtful. Don’t underestimate this. You will fall if you do. That’s why I told you to remind yourself every day, “God is good. God, you are a good God. Lord, I don’t feel good today but I know you are a good God! It’s not sunny today, it’s rainy and cold but you are a good God!”
If you think He’s not good, that does not make Him not a good God. There would never be goodness if God was not good. There is goodness because God is good. In other words, the source of goodness comes from Him. So God is a good God – and Gideon could not see that until the angel led him to build an altar. He was doubtful of God and of himself saying, “I am the least of my brethren. Who am I to worship you? Who am I to serve you? Who am I?” When you have the wrong picture of God, this will reflect on yourself. If you’re doubting God, of course you’ll doubt yourself. So if you’re doubting God you’ll find yourself in caves. A coward Christian.
The turning point in Gideon’s life was when he rebuilt the altar. Then he became mighty. An altar is a place where you worship – where you present yourself as the book of Romans chapter 12 says, as a living sacrifice. “I am yours, Lord. Take me.”
When Gideon builds his altar, we see this beautiful thing happening. He calls God Jehovah Shalom. He experiences God as Jehovah Shalom. Prince of peace! When he was worshipping, he knew deep inside that God is the Prince of Peace.
Whenever you build or rebuild your altar, you’re going to have a revelation of God. In order to build your altar, you have to have a personal relationship with Him. I don’t know who else is on your altar, but if there are other God’s – you’re going to have to take them out. You’re going to have to do what Gideon did. Just put your eyes on Jesus. And when you do that daily, God will reveal Himself to you. And when you have a revelation of God and when you know who God is – then you will become a worshiper.
Exodus 17 – Jehovah Nissi
Genesis 22 – Jehovah Jirah
I feel honored to come and be with you today – but really if you’re not going to do anything about this then I would rather go home and be with my wife. This needs your cooperation. I would love to have a great time of worship with you at the end of this week. But I’m not going to give you a list. It’s not about knowledge – it’s about acting.
Maybe you need to go back and fix your altar. Maybe you’re doing evil in the eyes of the Lord – and you need to repent, and ask forgiveness, and stop walking this way. I want to say that I’m sure God will help you through that.
Spirit of religion – religious spiritSomething that we all would fall in. What is religious spirit? It’s something that is so like, or looks so much like God. It looks like worship but it’s not worship. It’s fake. And it is a result of knowledge about God instead of knowing God.
John 4:3-30
This is a beautiful story. I want you to ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes, to read between the lines. There are the Jews and there are the Samaritans. They were enemies, but for Jesus they were not enemies, because he is not religious. He sees them and loves them. He sees them as human. “You are Catholic, I am Evangelical. You are Baptist. You worship differently. You are different. This is how religious people think. “I am better. I have the best way. I have the right way.” Because religious people are not concerned about relationship. They are more concerned with the act of worship, like it’s an obligation that we have to do. “I was born this way! I was raised this way! This is my church! This is how we worship in my church! You cannot lift your hands up! Shame on you, you are different!” Listen, I am not saying that worshipping quietly is wrong. And I’m not saying that not lifting up your hands is wrong, or lifting them up. I’m not saying that dancing or standing still is wrong – I’m saying that your heart might be wrong. Because worship is something that comes out of your heart. You worship because you love, and you just do it the way you like. No one has the right to put you in a box and tell you that this is how you should worship. And this is why I didn’t start with ways you should worship. Later, we will look at the Bible at the ways people worshiped. These aren’t things you have to do to please somebody. It’s also not something you do just to please God – but we do it because we love Him. I seek new ways to worship God because I love Him, not because I want to please Him. Of course I would love to please God, but I please Him because I love Him, not just because I’m afraid and I have to. So it’s not about how you worship, but about why you worship. A religious person will be very much stuck in HOW you worship. So when you are in worship time – just leave people alone and just be yourself! Be yourself! Enjoy it, and be yourself! You’re not doing this to please people around you, and you’re not doing it because the school says this is a time of worship. This is the time when you get to come before the lover of your soul. This is a time when you can just do anything, anything, anything to express your love – I’m talking about anything. I’m saying this because I want you to be yourself before the Lord, to be creative. You can kneel, you can stand, you can dance, you can cry, you can laugh… sometimes we can express ourselves to each other better than we can express ourselves to God.
I love David in the Bible. Although he was a king, when he was with the Father, he acted so much differently. He would dance in front of the tabernacle. But his wife was so religions. She would say, “you’re a king!” But I want you to just be yourself.
Do you like people stealing your freedom? Stop putting your friends and others in a box. If you can’t take it, close your eyes. Everyone here is free to be themselves. Stop being religions. We’re free in the presence of the Lord. Even God Himself respects our freedom. If today you decide to leave this room and go back to your life, God would not even stop you. Although it breaks His heart, He respects your freedom and lets you. Worship is worship as long as it’s coming from our hearts. Come with a heart of, “I want to meet my lover.”
If you’re Catholic, Baptist, or any other and you know Jesus Christ and believe in him – you will be with me for eternity.
What is behind the religious spirit is pride. We need to humble ourselves. We need to approach this spirit with an opposite spirit and say, “I need to learn from these people.”
Open your eyes so you’re not drawn into traditions. You need Jesus to open your eyes. Jesus tells the woman she will be thirsty again. Traditions never satisfy.
Lots of people think church is a club. It’s a friendship club. They sit in back and wait for their friends to come, whispering, “lets get lunch after church…”
When there is sin in your life and you know there is sin in your life and you ignore it, you cannot be a worshiper. If you know of sin in your life and you keep it and don’t deal with it – you can not be a worshiper. I’m not talking about weakness. You may be weak in an area that you keep falling in. I’m talking about a sin that God is telling you to stop it and you’re not. You don’t want to. You’re not even putting forth an effort, thinking that you’re going to church and you’ll be okay. Your life will never be okay until you make that decision, “Lord, I’m weak and I need your help.” Many people just hide their sin. They just exaggerate their spiritual life, “look at me! I’m spiritual!”
This woman avoided the truth by bringing up a religions conversation. What did Jesus say to this woman, “you worship what you do not know.” Jesus says you must worship in spirit and truth. Not just one, with both. You need your mind and your spirit.
This woman came to the well at this time when nobody went. It was too hot at noon. She didn’t want to meet anyone. Jesus met her there and pointed to her sin, and told her that he can get her out of it.
John 4:28 – she left her jar. Woman, aren’t you thirsty anymore? No. You have the living water of Jesus. I don’t need to drink from Jacob’s well anymore.
Today, the question is, are you religious? If you are, you need to repent and ask the Lord for help. If you are, you cannot come before the Lord as a worshiper. You need to ask the Lord to break all of your traditions. We are no longer of this world, we are of heaven.
I don’t want to be effected by where I grew up or the way my fathers were worshipping. I want to effect them. Instead of adjusting to my community, I want my community to adjust to Heaven. Pray this prayer today when you’re alone, “Lord, free me from all traditions. Lord, I don’t want to be a Baptist anymore. I don’t want to be Pentecostal. I want to be heavenly. I want to have a relationship – a real one. And when I come before you I don’t want to stand before a religion. I am standing in front of a person – my bridegroom.
