Worship With A Clear Conscience

Matthew 5:23-24 New International Version (NIV)

23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

Today we will focus on the word worship.

We have been created in order to worship God.

The only way we can be happy is when we learn to worship God the right way.

The Psalmist said in 95:6 "Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker."

The word "worship" here means to bow down, to depress, to prostrate oneself before the Almighty God.

It means we have recognized that God is a Superior Being and we give full reverence to Him.

Worship therefore means we honor and glorify Him.

The Psalmist wants us to worship God by kneeling before our Maker.

True worship therefore means fully dedicating our whole being to God.

It involves the seven key areas of our lives:

The Physical, Spiritual, Emotional, Intellectual, Financial, Relational and Vocational aspects of our lives.

Worship is not withholding anything to Him.

Worship is giving all to Him.

It is a progressive commitment of unveiling ourselves to God.

It takes time to grow from one level to another.

But that is the path we need to take if we want to grow in our worship to God.

To give you a brief background of how this happens, let me start with our life before we found Christ.

Before we came to know Christ as Savior, we do not know how to worship God.

In fact, we have no knowledge of what true worship is all about.

Our minds and hearts are self-centered - it is all about me.

It is all about our desires.

It is all about our needs.

It is all about our dreams and aspirations.

In fact, we worship ourselves.

Our minds are darkened with understanding.

Our hearts are emotionally disturbed with a lot of things.

We had difficulty coming to God in worship.

We don't like it.

It is not in our vocabulary.

But something happened when Christ came into our hearts.

This changed drastically our attitude towards God.

Our sins are forgiven.

Our hearts are cleansed.

The Holy Spirit came to reside and take control.

And slowly, as time passed by, we have a growing revelation for the need to worship God the right way.

We are being transformed into Christ-centered individuals.

We begin to enjoy our worship.

We begin to grow in our worship.

The seven key areas of our lives are beginning to be involved in worship.

This is part of our spiritual growth.

In our verses for today, we will look at what worship is all about from the point of view of Jesus.

He connects worship with three of the seven key areas of our lives.

The Financial, the Intellectual and the Relational aspects.

He said that as we begin to worship God, we must present our offerings before the altar - that is the financial aspect.

While we are at the altar and giving our offerings, there are several things that God will remind us - that is the Intellectual aspect.

He will remind us of the people that we come in contact with - that is the Relational aspect.

He will remind us of how we feel about them and how we treat them.

He will teach us what we need to do and how we should offer our gifts to God.

These verses are full of practical insights into the right ways of worship.

My prayer is that we will all learn the value of right worship before God.

OUTLINE OF THE VERSE:

WORSHIP WITH A CLEAR CONSCIENCE

Worship involves giving your offering - FINANCIAL COMMITMENT

Worship involves listening from God - INTELLECTUAL COMMITMENT

Worship involves reconciliation with your fellow Christians - RELATIONAL COMMITMENT

Worship involves having a clear conscience

I. WORSHIP INVOLVES GIVING OUR OFFERINGS: THE RELATIONAL COMMITMENT

Matthew 5:23 "23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar..."

In other translations, the word "offering" means to bring to or lead to.

The idea is to bring a present or a thing to someone out of respect.

The word "gift" on the other hand is from the Gr "Doron" which means a present in expression of giving honor to God.

It also means the money cast into the treasury for the purposes of the temple and the support of the poor.

And so, as the people worship the Lord, they would bring their free-will offerings which was used for the needs of the temple treasury.

And as they do that, God looks at them and He is pleased with their worship.