Living our whole lives a worship to God
Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your truth,
we eagerly wait for you;
for your name and your renown
are the desire of our hearts’ Isaiah 26:28
I want start by asking you a question –
What is the most important thing in your life?
You might say well God of course!
What are we passionate about?
What satisfies us?
What do we hunger after?
· I have asked this question before and people have answered honestly in their hearts, my girlfriend, my family, or myself.
· Who are we worshipping?
· Trust
· To worship God we need to trust in Jesus, love God with all our heart, soul and mind
· Story of plane flight – I once went to a small airport on the Shetland Isles northern part of Scotland. When I arrived I was told there was not enough wind and that the plane needed to have 10 less passengers travelling! This was not too appealing. But I had to get on the flight, the plane went along the small runway with its propellers and took off over the sea, phew. I had to trust the engineers and pilots that they knew what they were talking about, I had to step onto that plane, exercising trust.
We can trust in different things.
· Self? – Have you noticed in society how many words our now about ourselves, self-help, self-awareness, self-help, self-fulfilment, self-expression, self-determination, self-actualisation and the list goes on.
· We can be wrapped up in our own life, money, studies, Holidays, and Clothes, these can be our desires
· Other people? Relationships, friends – it is possible to put these before God.
· Jesus? Have you come to a place in your life where you have asked God for forgiveness been truly sorry for the sin in your life?
Have you seen it important to live for Jesus and not just yourself?
Are you challenged to put Jesus first in your life? To accept his Grace and be moved from darkness to light, death to life, to be become a new person in Christ?
Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your truth,
we eagerly wait for you;
for your name and your renown
are the desire of our hearts’ Isaiah 26:28 – is Jesus the desire of our hearts?
· Living our lives as worship
Romans 12
Living Sacrifices
· 1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
· Live distinctive lives that offer our lives as sacrifices to God
· It is easy to go along with the flow of the culture we live in, we can be transformed by the world rather than God.
· Temptation to compromise and live a double life, act in a Christian way at CU and Church and live differently outside Church and CU
· To compromise in our relationships, sexual purity, attitudes to money to ambition.
· ‘You serve your appetites when you treat them as the most compelling offer of pleasure’ John Piper
· What can be more compelling than Christ? Relationships, sex, money, food or drink – NO
· Be transformed By God and his Grace, the work of the Holy Spirit, we can’t transform ourselves but God can, be transformed.
· Worship is Sharing God’s glory
Philippians 2:9-11
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
· Before I was a Christian I did not want to worship God, praise Jesus But as Christians befriended, shared God’s word, the light of Christ into my eyes, I began to see and turned to Christ.
· When I became a Christian I began to praise Jesus, the name of Jesus did not mean anything before I became a Christian but it completely changed when I came into this relationship.
· My life should not be about my fame, my glory but about God’s glory about the name of Jesus about the work Jesus is doing in me and how his glory is shining.
· It should not be about the fame of your church but Christ.
· His name is the name above every name. – the king of kings, Lord of Lords, the creator, the sustainer, the saviour, redeemer.
· We should not be ashamed of his name but we should cherish his name and want to see more people bowing the knee to Jesus
· ‘Let worship be the fuel for missions flame, we’re going with a passion for your name, we’re going for we care about your praise, send us out’ matt Redman
· This worship is not just singing a few songs but is adoration, praise for God, a desire for God and we should have that in our lives.
· If we live our whole lives as worship we want to be involved in evangelism, it is not a work or an added extra, we will want to share his glory, make him known, to see other people become worshippers of Jesus.
Are we willing to live our lives for Christ as worship to him in all we do?
Are we in that relationship with Christ?
How do you respond?
