Introduction:
I want to give you a formula for success today that will encourage you and keep you in trying times.
God + me = success
When we read our text….
28 “Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God”
Dt. 12
…..it can get a person optimistic and give him hope, to know that good things will happen when God’s plan is followed
“so that it may always go well with you and your children after you”
We must not only be careful in obeying God’s word, but teaching our sons and daughters as well. Our society today has done much to try to destroy the credibility of the Christian message, but the Spirit of the Living God that reigns in His people is able to overcome these odds and reign supreme.
Illustration on corporate worship
Let me give you a for instance. How many people here today have been told by well meaning parents that they just don’t want to impose religion on their children, that they want to wait until they make up their own minds for them to choose?
I am not going out on a limb here, but if there is one thing that Lorraine and I did right it was to make that choice of going to church for our kids before they were born.
To allow a child to choose to go to church is akin to telling him that Church does not matter. It is akin to telling him that it is OK to play with a loaded gun because when God goes out of the equation, the World will rule.
Purpose Statement and application
Today we must preach on how we can impress upon our families and others the importance of corporate worship.
Body of Sermon
The Negative Reasons For Worship
One strong reason for worship’s importance can be seen in this verse: 31
“you must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.”
Dt 12:31
Today we will be looking at the OT book of Deuteronomy and particularly looking at what God requires from us in our worshipping him.
We are only one generation from Christian extinction.
The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:7,10)
Illus: last night, Barb and our smallness
Last night, as Barb walked out to her car she noted the beauty of the sky, and conversation begun about Heaven. We shared that when you look at that great beauty, you are forced to realize that the length of days that we have on this planet are so few.
What are we doing with our life today? What is our purpose? God tells us here the importance of being careful to obey Him in regard to worshipping Him His way.
Just a bit ago, I mentioned about the detestable practice of child sacrifice. And though we may pass that off, two things I wan to bring to your attention. First, there have been cases of satanic worship where human sacrifices were made. And regardless of what you think about that, there is something that may be far more dangerous: the sacrificing of our younger generation to the god of disrespect, to the god of mediocrity, to the god of relativism, to the god of ‘it’s all about me’.
Church do you know what I am talking about here!
The Bible at this point tells us to obey God on this point of worship, and it goes so far not only telling us of the detestable practices but in the opening verses of this chapter to be proactice:
2 Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
Dt 12:2-3
Illustration of the need to be deliberate and diligent: The weeds overcome
When we lived in KCMO, we rented a duplex on Walrond Avenue. We had our own fenced in back yard and along the entire fence line, we had a lot of shrubs and weeds. I did not like that and wanted to get those things out of there so one day, I got an ax, a saw, some shears, and I cleared out that fence line. I dug down below the soil and went after those roots. I was on a crusade to rid us of weeds. Well…..
….I did….and it stayed weed free for a little while, but then they came back again. I gave up. I was just too tired to face the weeds again.
What I learned from this is the importance of diligence. Now Kevin cares for our lawn. No problem…except when he gets these expensive ideas that cost us more than we have.
Here in God’s word we are told to destroy completely all the worship places. Sometimes one tiny weed of antichristian teaching can sprout up and if left unchecked it will blossom.
My friends, one parent told me when his child received Christ as Savior this: O, he will get over it. He can make his decision later in life. Too young. Did this parent give his blessing to the god of relativism? “Hey, you believe the way you want to, and we will believe the way we want to.”
Such practices are detestable. We should fall down on our faces and cry out to God to save us again, if the first time just did not really take!
****Transition time*****
Do you know that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 – July 9, 1797)
an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher
The Positive Reasons For Worshiping
My friends, when we come together in obedience to God’s command,
The people of God will have his power
19"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
Matthew 18:19-20
people will come to salvation
5 and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you!"
1 Corinthians 14:25
God will be glorified
10 the 24 elders fall down before the One seated on the throne, worship the One who lives forever and ever, cast their crowns before the throne, and say: 11 Our Lord and God, You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because You have created all things, and because of Your will they exist and were created.
Revelation 4:10
The best reason for corporate worship is found right here in verse 28
“that it may always go well with you and your children after you.”
Dt 12:28
Illus
I met a man who told me, why go to church and listen to a preacher, God is everywhere, I can listen to him.
If we listen to God, we will hear him say:
26What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.
I Corinthians 14:26
We will hear Him say:
42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Act 4:42
My dear friends, we believe and teach that God created us from nothing…
…we believe and teach that God has a purpose for our lives,
and YET well meaning Christians have bought into this carefree notion of corporate worship as being something nice but God understands when I got something else planned.
One of the best ways to teach your families about the importance of corporate worship is to come to church prepared to receive a blessing from God. Anticipate from even before you walk through that door, that somewhere along in the worship time, God is going to grab hold of your attention. It may be during the singing of songs, or the prayer time, or the testimony time, or the preaching time. But when you cultivate the sense of expectancy, your family will note it and you will model the importance of corporate worship through your actions too.
To this date, when I don’t feel like coming to church, or midweek Bible Study, I do all I can to refuse that emotion, and go anyway. And pretty much each time that I do go, I get renewed. Wow, God it happened again. You really did show up.
Here in this verse we are told that ‘it may go well. Throughout this book, 8 times, we read something like “obey God that it may go well with thee”
We need to be thinking about making disciples…
… about raising a generation of Christian leaders
…about keeping God’s commands to worship Him as he commands
Such leadership can be discipled at the local church level in congregations where there is strong emphasis on godly living and godly obedience to His word. O my friends our times of corporate worship must be times when the songs have been chosen by God himself…
…when the sermon is God ordained, and
…where the congregation is all out for “what would Jesus do”.
Is this what you are teaching in your homes to your families? Is this the message you are conveying through your actions and words to a culture that is against the things of God but thinks that they are following God.
Conclusion
In closing, I want to tell you of a word picture I was thinking of as it pertains to our need to grasp onto God’s command to worship Him as He commands. A pitbull dog was purposely bred to fight bulls. It’s nose is pointed upward so that it can breath once it had latched onto the bull.
I am wondering today if you, my friend, have that pitbull tenacity, to go after your opponent, the prince of this world who is filling the minds and hearts of our family with really off the wall ideas of worship. To go after him, while still being able to breathe in the rich Word of God.
Altar Call
Illustration: Sermons and food
Listen to me now. There was this Christian man who was asked if he could remember the sermon that was preached recently. When told ‘no’, he was asked why he even went to church if he seemingly got so little out of it. His reply went something like this: ‘well I don’t recall all the meals that my wife made for me even one week ago, but I do know that they were nutritious, and I do know that without them I would not be able to undertake all the things that I needed to do.
Maybe you are here today and you can’t remember the sermon from last week, or the prayer request that was made or the songs sung, but, maybe like this man, you know because you have experienced it in your soul, that corporate worship is good for your soul.
I want to tell you something now. One reason why people do not come to church is because the church has failed them. Listen to me. Maybe you are that person today. Maybe you have family members who just did not see a godly example on the home front on the importance of chuch, and now simply don’t go.
Maybe you need to pray right now and ask God to show you how to reach out to your family member.
Remember the formula that I gave you: God + you = success. If you lack in this area of teaching your family the importance of corporate worship, God is able to meet your needs.
Come let us pray.
