God's Program Of Worship

INTRO.- ILL.- One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the evil that was going on. He decided to send an angel down to Earth to check it out. So He called one of His best angels and sent the angel to Earth for a while. When he returned he told God, yes it is bad on Earth, 95% is bad and 5% is good.

Well, He thought for a moment and thought maybe He'd better send down a second angel to get another point of view. So God called another angel and sent him to Earth for a time too. When the angel returned he went to God and told him "Yes, the Earth is in decline. 95% is bad and 5% is good." God said this was not good.

So He decided to send e-mail to the 5% that were good. He wanted to encourage them, give them a little something to help them keep going. Do you know what that e-mail said? Oh, you didn't get one either, huh? What a bummer.

You're bad and I'm bad. No, it's probably worse than that. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23). And sometimes, the old man of sin still plagues us, still haunts us, and still hogs our lives.

Of course, most of us don't like to admit that we struggle, BUT WE DO!

Now, we're on this side of Easter. What does this mean? It means we have victory in Jesus! Since He rose from the dead He is who He claimed to be! And He can do what He says He can do! He bore our sins in His body on the tree! Because of Jesus we will have no sins to account for! JESUS PAID THE PRICE FOR OUR SINS!

What's your agenda for today? For the rest of your life? Have you considered God's agenda for your life? Because Jesus conquered the grave, He also should have conquered our hearts and lives!

ILL.- Former American Idol and now Country Music star (and Entertainer of the Year), Carrie Underwood, made the song, "Jesus, Take the Wheel" a very popular song. BUT IT'S NOT JUST A SONG. Or it shouldn't be just a song to sing. It should be the theme of our lives! JESUS, TAKE THE WHEEL OF MY LIFE AND STEER ME IN ANY DIRECTION YOU WANT!

I think the hardest struggle that we have to deal with is our own independence. We are stubbornly independent and don't want anybody to run or rule our lives and yet the Lord deserves this place in our lives.

John the Baptizer, however, had the right attitude when he said of Jesus in John 3:30, "He must increase, but I must decrease." We must allow Jesus to increase in our lives! He must become King, Lord, and Master, because of who He is and what He did for us!

Matthew 28:8-9 "So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him." After the resurrection they worshiped.

Have you fallen at the feet of Jesus and worshiped Him? Because of Easter, we need to get with God's program of worship. We need to get more into worship, because when we get to heaven WE WILL WORSHIP THE LORD!

PROP.- Let's consider various aspects of God's program of worship for here and now.

1- Worship Him only

2- Worship Him everywhere

3- Worship Him sincerely

I. WORSHIP HIM ONLY

Matthew 4:10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

After Jesus' fasted 40 days and nights Satan hit Jesus with three very strong temptations but Jesus slapped Satan in the face with the truth of God! Jesus plainly told Satan there is only one true God and He alone is to be worshiped.

ILL.- There was a minister who sneaked off early one Sunday morning to play golf. Looking down from heaven, the angel Michael spotted the lone golfer on the course and pointed him out to Peter. “I’ll fix him” Peter said. The golfer drove, and his ball headed for the woods. Then it bounced against a tree, struck a bridge, flew into the woods behind the sixth hole and rebounded again to the land in the cup 520 yards away.

“You call that fixing him?” exclaimed the angel. “Certainly,” said Peter, “who’s he going to tell?”

That preacher had no business playing golf on Sunday morning when he should have been in church, worshiping the Lord. NOR SHOULD ANYONE ELSE! That's idol worship.

Romans 1:21-25 "21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.