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UNHINDERED

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Week 4 - Unhindered Worship

 

We are finishing up our series called UNHINDERED.

 

We have been blessed by having a very gifted Praise and Worship team. I’m so thankful for all that they do. And yet, I know that we have not crossed that line in worship that God desires for us as His people.  So today, we are going to look at what it means to have UNHINDERED WORSHIP.

We are basing our series on this scripture…

 

Acts 28:30-31 NASB

“Paul stayed two full years in his own rented lodging and welcomed all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching things about the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, UNHINDERED.

 

The very last word of Acts could very well be the first word of faith for all those who believe.

 

The word UNHINDERED here in the Greek means “freedom, unreservedness, fearless confidence, cheerful courage, boldness, assurance.”

 

I have a burden for you. I desire us to have

  • freedom of worship,
  • unreserved worship (not looking around, judging or fear of being judged
  • fearless confidence in our worship,
  • worship based in a cheerful courage
  • bold worship,
  • assured

 

That’s our goal this morning and it may sound and look different than you think.

What you think IS worship IS not worship.

 

WHAT IS WORSHIP?

A simple definition of worship is to assign “worth ship”, value, to honor it as the thing of highest importance and to act accordingly.

 

Anything can be worshiped. How many lives have been ruined or in ruin now because something has taken the place of highest importance in their lives…and it has destroying them.

 

Worship is when we give our deepest affections and highest praise to something.

 

Biblical worship can be found in this verse: 

 

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 New King James Version

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

 

We quote this scripture a lot, but what does that look like and how is it related to our worship?

 

We all have a picture in our minds what worship looks like or we have been told what it looks like, or we have been told what it doesn’t look lie. But here is the truth:

 

YOU CAN ONLY WORSHIP TO THE DEGREE THAT YOU KNOW SOMEONE OR SOMETHING.

 

That’s why we seek more information on the things that we love to worship. For me, I used to seek knowledge of Georgia football. Now there is nothing wrong with Georgia football, but if I know more about them than I do my Savior, my LORD, then I have put Georgia football on a pedestal to worship.

See, the person or thing that you know the most is the one that you normally have no problem appreciating.

Matter of fact, the person or thing that you know the most is who or what you talk about the most. You can always tell who has had the most contribution to your life by who you talk about the most, your ease of appreciation, your praise for them, your acknowledgement of them.

 

YOU HAVE TO KNOW GOD IN ORDER TO WORSHIP GOD

 

The only way to know God is to read His thoughts…(His WORD(s)).

The BIBLE is not only God's mind about you and the world and creation, but it's God's mind about Himself.

 

We need to take inventory of our conversations, our checkbooks, our thoughts and acknowledge who or what we worship in our lives.

 

UNHINDERED WORSHIP

 

THE PROCESS SHOULD TAKE US TO THE PURPOSE, BUT THE PROCESS MUST NEVER BECOME THE PURPOSE ITSELF.

 

Worshipping God is very difficult and yet very simple. But if we are not careful, we can fall in love with the song, the talent, the service, or style instead of God.  

 

When the song becomes more important than the One you are singing to then the entire worship experience is tainted.

 

And yet we have people, dare I say churches that will not worship God if it’s NOT their favorite song, or their ‘style’ of worship. If it’s not too hot, or too cold…

 

The truth is, we human beings may be looking for new and improved ways to worship, but God is not.

God does not want experts at worship.

 

What God wants is people who will follow His instructions every time they approach Him. (We are going to do a series in September called Worship the King where we will look at the manifestations of worship in the Bible).

 

Here is the God’s passion for our worship:

 

The purpose of worship is to get God’s presence back into our experience.


The struggle that we have though is that

 

THE PROCESS HAS BECOME OUR PURPOSE.

 

Have you ever thought this?

Well, I paid my dues. I've been to church. I’ve checked the box.

That's a mentality that's real in this room right now.

 

I’ve been to church going to go on with my life. Why? We checked the moral box. 

We have placed more importance on showing up for a couple of hours and so we checked the box, paid him our dues, whoever him is, because we’ve never met him, he didn't show up, but we did pay our dues and we are happy, matter of fact, we are proud that we sat through that for two and half hours. We consider that an accomplishment. I made it through the service. And the very mentality is, I survived the couple of hours, and I did this thing.

And we say,

“Now God, I hope you're satisfied, whoever you are. You didn’t show up to today for me, but I did my part.”

 

So, the process has become the purpose.  

In other words, we don't come to a meeting to meet God.

We come to a meeting to have a meeting.

The meeting itself has become the purpose.

 

Church should be different. Coming to church should be a part of your worship to God.

That’s why as a Pastor I get discouraged when I see people miss service. It burdens my heart, not that I am exalted in you coming. I just know that it puts you in danger because I know that the enemy is after your worship.

 

 

 

 

Any other worship other than God is idolatry.

Your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your spouse, your very children, or whomever or whatever you give more worth than God is an idol.

 

That includes the song that you are singing. That includes the dance that you are dancing. It includes the instrument that you play. You can be so focused and preoccupied with how you sound, you have no time to give it to Him.

 

 

GOD HATES IDOLATRY.

 

If you go to your computer and type in the word idol in your Bible program and press search there's no room on the page for the number of references you'll find in the Bible. Thousands of them and in each page that you find idol is God hating it.

 

WHAT IS IDOLATRY?

Idolatry is making anything more worthy than God.

 

Psalm 78:58 New King James Version

58 For they provoked Him to anger with their high places,
And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images.

 

Now the Bible teaches us not to harbor jealousy. As a matter of fact, one of the sins that God says he hates is jealousy. And yet God himself becomes jealous but only over one thing: idolatry.

 

God is never jealous of anything else. I've searched the scriptures and you'll never find one thing God is ever jealous of except this one thing. Idolatry.

 

God gets jealous for you because HE knows that those idols give false hope. They lead to sin, eventually death. They don’t have the power to save you.  

 

Isaiah 44:9 NLT

9 How foolish are those who manufacture idols.
    These prized objects are really worthless.
The people who worship idols don’t know this,
    so they are all put to shame.

 

Notice the word worthless, the root word is the same word as worship so what God is saying objects are really worth less,

He is saying, “They ain't worth worshiping.”

 

1 John 5:21 New Living Translation

21 Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.

 

How do you stay away from them?

You have to keep yourself from them.

In other words, they are always creeping up, creeping in and you have to do something all the time. You gotta keep watching them because they will creep in.

 

David says this because he knew heart… a man did so much wrong, if he were here today, I wonder if you would accept David in our congregation. And yet he was a man after God’s own heart.

This is why…he said

 

Psalm 139:23-24 New Living Translation

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
    and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

 

 

Do you want to know how important worship is to God?

It is #1 in the 10 COMMANDMENTS

 

Exodus 20:1-2 NLT

Then God gave the people all these instructions:

2 “I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.

 

Look where God starts, he tells His people to remember…remember what? That He is the one that rescued them from slavery!! (I am going to refer back to this idea in a moment.)

 

3 You must not have any other god but me.

 

IN other words, He is saying, don’t give anything or anyone else credit for creating and sustaining everything. Don’t identify no one else as the source of all things. If you do, you’ve broken the first commandment of life.

That's what that verse means.

4 “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. 5 You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.

 

In other words, don't you put more worth on anything I created than you put on me.

My boyfriend said, he doesn't want me to go to church anymore. So, because I love my boyfriend more than worshipping God, I will stop going to assembling of myself together.

 

Or you find yourself bowing down to your activities or your childrens activities that you find yourself too tired to go to times of prayer, times of worship, I can't attend regular as the Bible says to not to neglect, because I have to sustain my family.

Now, who is God? The One who sustains. Imagine abandoning your sustenance to find sustenance.

But we do it all the time.

 

If we don't understand this, we keep worshipping worship. It's tough to spend hours trying to find God. Can I find Him? David said,

 

Psalm 119:10 New King James Version

10 With my whole heart I have sought You;
Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!

 

Are you tired of not having God? Anybody tired? Are you, have you had enough of NOT being in HIS presence?

 

Here is my last point:

 

WORSHIP IS SINGING A NEW SONG

 

What do worship teams do? They've been raised up to force people to praise God.  Because people come without a song, without a hymn, without a tongue, without a praise upon their lips.

And Paul said:

1 Corinthians 14:26 English Standard Version

26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.

 

In other words, there's something Paul discovered that generated a song before the meeting started.

 

Psalm 96:1-2 New Living Translation

1 Sing a new song to the Lord!
    Let the whole earth sing to the Lord!
2 Sing to the Lord; praise his name.
    Each day proclaim the good news that he saves.

 

If you come without worship or praise already on your tongue, could it be that you are an idol worshipper?

 

Listen, until you acknowledge, you cannot worship.

 

See raising your hands, clapping, shouting, singing, running, jumping, dancing, are all manifestations of worship. They are NOT worship. They are a natural behavior as a result of realizing something else. 

We go back to our first point.

Only what you know about God will determine how much you worship God.

 

You cannot worship beyond your knowledge.

I don't care how deep you think you are, this is why God will allow you to go through difficulties, not to hurt you, but to keep introducing himself to you at different levels, through different ways.

So, you can have more material to worship with.

Give you a new song.

 

You can learn a lot about a person from what song they are singing.

 

A new song comes from what you know. That’s why you cannot worship beyond what you know about God. You can't invent things about God. It has to be learned from an encounter.

 

Remember the purpose of worship is for God’s Presence to become our Experience!  

 

We sing a song, ‘If you knew him like I know him you know..

You would praise him like I praise him.

You would shout, clap, jump, run, whatever…

Am I right?


You cannot call God deliverer if you never needed deliverance.

That's why you can sing a song that someone else wrote and it doesn't become worship because you are singing someone else's testimony.

 

When John Newton wrote Amazing Grace, as beloved that hymnal is. That song came out of a man who lost his wife and his kids at sea.

You gotta lose something to be able to sing that song. You gotta lose something to say, Amazing Grace! and I'm still here. Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound!

But if you ain't never lost nothing. It's just a song and it becomes a means of going through a service.

 

Am I making sense?

 

You cannot worship beyond your knowledge of the God you worship.

 

David says,

 

Psalms 103:1-5 NLT

1 Let all that I am praise the Lord; who is he talking to? Himself
    with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
2 Let all that I am praise the Lord;
    may I never forget the good things he does for me.
3 He forgives all my sins
    and heals all my diseases.
4 He redeems me from death
    and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
5 He fills my life with good things.
    My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!

 

 

God demands worship.

God calls every man to worship Him.

 

UNHINDERED WORSHIP simply means going back to acknowledging GOD as the source of everything and that nothing you do for Him is more important than Him, including your worship.

 

We sing through songs, but we really don't sing songs.

True worship is not about the ‘act of singing’, frequency of singing, or number of songs on Sunday. Also, singing is not exercised because of ‘tradition’, ‘habit’ or merely ‘to include a song’ in order to say we have worshipped God.

True worship supernaturally emanates from the heart.

 

I’ll give you another example. The song, ‘Oh Lord, You are beautiful.’

 

I believe that's a tough song to sing if you never seen God’s beauty. Am I right? That's like singing about someone you have never seen.

 

Keith Green who wrote that song, shared one night how he wrote that song at a concert.

“On Monday night of this week, at about midnight, I wrote a letter to the Lord. I didn’t know where to mail it, so I put it in my Bible (laughs). And I asked him, ‘Lord, you’ve gotta do something about my heart. You know, a lot of time’s gone by since I met you. And it’s startin’ to harden up, you know. It’s kind of natural. I wanna to have baby skin Lord. I wanna to have skin like a baby on my heart. It’s starting to get old and wrinkled and callous.’ It’s not ‘cause of anything I’m doing. It’s ‘cause of a lot of things I’m not doing. And I stayed up till about 2 in the morning writing this song…” 

 

Here are the words:

Oh Lord, you’re beautiful,
Your face is all I see,
For when your eyes are on this child,
Your grace abounds to me.

 

You can't sing that song unless you have what Keith had.

We sing it but it doesn't connect because it's just words to us.

 

So I want you to stop for a minute

 

and think

 

think about a place where you were just about to fold up,

 

maybe give in

 

it seemed hopeless,

 

desperate and lonely…

 

and then God brought in someone or something that saved you!

 

And you said, what a beautiful solution!

 

That's the beauty of God. Now you can sing that song.

Let’s sing that song together…