My Life As A Worshiper (1 Of 6) Series

MyLife

As a Worshiper

By Pastor Mark McNees

This message was originally given at Element3 Church in Tallahassee FL. To download this message’s corresponding PowerPoint, audio, and artistic elements for free please visit www.element3.org

Hey, I’m Mark. I’m pastor here and we are starting a new series called My Life: Improving Your Profile. Basically, it’s a series looking at the phenomenon known as MySpace. If you don’t know anything about MySpace, it’s a place where millions and millions of people come and they spend hours and hours, weeks, months and years working on their profile to kind of project an image. What we’re going to be doing is looking at our current profile in life and then looking at God’s vision for our profile in our life and trying to close the gap between the two. So we are going to be engaging in some drama throughout this series and just kind of walking through this as we try to improve our profile. Before we jump into that, let’s pray and we’ll get going.

“Dear God, thank you for today. Thank you for the opportunity to once again lift our voices and just praise you and worship you. I just pray that you open up our hearts and minds today with what you want to communicate to us through your word. We love you Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

(Drama begins)

“I’m so bored. I wish someone would sign on AIM. Well, Tom and Kelly keep bugging me to start a MySpace profile. I guess I could do that, www.myspace.com, sign up. Okay, let’s see. Got my e-mail address and name and password all entered. Upload a picture? What do I have on my computer? Oh man, definitely not that one. Maybe, this one. Yeah, I like it, cute, yet pensive. It says “Hey, I’m likable” without saying “Hey, please like me.” What’s next? About me, well, I’m a fun person whose laid back and hates drama, so don’t try to bring your baggage around here because I don’t have time for it. Good. Who I’d like to meet? Anyone cool, and Britney Spears, yeah. No, that makes me sound like I’m 12. Uh, Brad Pitt? That’s too cliché. Ooh, Carole King. She’s retro-cool, right? What song did she sing again? Whatever, let’s put her in my heroes too.”

(Drama ends)

1 Kings 18:22-29 Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only prophet of the Lord who is left, but Baal has 450 prophets. Now bring two bulls. The prophets of Baal may choose whichever one they wish and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood of their altar, but without setting fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood on the altar, but not set fire to it. Then call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by setting fire to the wood is the true God!” And all the people agreed. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “You go first, for there are many of you. Choose one of the bulls, and prepare it and call on the name of your god. But do not set fire to the wood.” So they prepared one of the bulls and placed it on the altar. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noontime, shouting, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no reply of any kind. Then they danced, hobbling around the altar they had made. About noontime Elijah began mocking them. “You’ll have to shout louder,” he scoffed, “for surely he is a god! Perhaps he is daydreaming, or is relieving himself. Or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!” So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out. They raved all afternoon until the time of the evening sacrifice, but still there was no sound, no reply, no response.

1 Kings 18:30-37 Then Elijah called to the people, “Come over here!” They all crowded around him as he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn down. He took twelve stones, one to represent each of the tribes of Israel, and he used the stones to rebuild the altar in the name of the Lord. Then he dug a trench around the altar large enough to hold about three gallons. He piled wood on the altar, cut the bull into pieces, and laid the pieces on the wood. Then he said, “Fill four large jars with water, and pour the water over the offering and the wood.” After they had done this, he said, “Do the same thing again!” And when they were finished, he said, “Now do it a third time!” So they did as he said, and the water ran around the altar and even filled the trench. At the usual time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command. O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself.”