Worship Is Dangerous

Psalm 100 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. [2] Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. [3] Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. [4] Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. [5] For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Introduction:

I think I may have used this Scripture around Thanksgiving, but I was challenged in a devotional that I read a couple of weeks ago to read this Scripture everyday for at least 2 weeks. As I have been doing that, God has been speaking to me through this Scripture, and I have been seeing things that I didn’t see before. This week, after my back slipped out of place, doing daily things that we take for granted were suddenly more than I could do. Even the act of holding my Bible to study it, has been more than I could physically do. So in my pretty much helpless state, this Scripture would come back to me again and again to meditate upon. Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

A. Worship is dangerous:

I want you to know this morning that all this shouting for joy, worshiping, and singing is dangerous, in fact it can be dangerous to your health. A couple of weeks ago I found this out first hand. I was feeling down, and discouraged. I knew the answer was in praising God and so that is what I did. I went downstairs to the basement, got on the treadmill and started walking at a pretty fast speed. While I was walking I put a Carman C.D. in and began to sing with it, if that wasn’t enough I began to sign also. Now picture this…Here I am, walking rather fast, singing, signing, worshiping the Lord, with my eyes closed. It’s a recipe for disaster I tell you. I just about fell off and broke my neck. This is where I should tell you, “don’t try this at home”. But the truth is, you do need to try this at home, maybe not the part about walking fast with your eyes closed, but the rest of it. Praise God, shout for joy, worship the Lord with gladness and joyful songs – at home, at church, in the car, wherever you are you can praise the Lord.

Worshiping God is dangerous also to feelings of depression and discouragement. If we are honest, we know that there are times when we all get down for one reason or another, but we don’t have to stay there. When we praise and worship God we get our mind off of ourselves and our situations and we put our minds on the One who is able to do something about our problems. When we worship Him we get a whole new perspective on what is important and as we do that, His joy fills our hearts. Have you ever been there. One minute your discouraged or feeling down, and you start to praise God and then before you know it, the cloud has lifted and all you know is that you are standing on Holy ground. You are in the presence of God almighty.

I also want you to know this morning that worshiping and praising God is dangerous to the devil. The devil can’t stand it when we praise and worship God. He hates it so much in fact that he has to leave our presence. There is nothing that the devil wants more then to see God’s children discouraged and mopping around, not having joy in our lives, not finding strength to live victorious lives for God. That is why praising God is dangerous to the devil.

B. Knowledge is dangerous:

The next thing I noticed about this Scripture is that Knowledge is dangerous. In verse 3 it says, “Know that the Lord is God, It is He who made us and we are His.” Do you realize how powerful that little verse is? Know that the Lord is God that He made us and we belong to Him. When we have this knowledge of who God is and what He has done for us there is no room for things like falsehood or feebleness, but there is tremendous freedom. Knowing God, and knowing that I belong to him means that I am dangerous in the eyes of anything that is evil. God is all powerful and nothing can come against him, and I belong to that powerful God. I’m not feeble and weak, I am His! Do you know what this knowledge does for me? It makes me want to shout for joy, worship the Lord with gladness and come before him in joyful songs. When I see the stars at night shining especially bright, I want to shout out, “Lord, thank you for your creation.” When its hazy and cloudy and I can’t see my own hand before my face, I still want to shout out, “Thank you Lord”. When things are going great – I have joy, but you know what, when things aren’t going so great, when I find myself not feeling up to par, or like this week, with a back problem and in intense pain, I have also found that there is joy. There is joy in God’s presence and he helps me find that joy when I keep my mind and heart centered upon Him. He has not promised us that if we would live for him that life would be wonderful and we would never struggle, but just the opposite, He says if we follow him that we will have trouble in this life, but to take heart that He has overcome the world. He has also said that He would always be with us and that He would never forsake us. This is reason to praise Him. But this knowledge is dangerous! It is dangerous not to have this knowledge of who God is and who we are in Him. It is dangerous because without it we don’t have freedom. The freedom to live the life that He has planned for us. Remember Jeremiaha 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” There is tremendous freedom in knowing our God and creator and knowing that he has a plan for us. We have the freedom to truly live.