27 Feb First Things First (Worship is not just the song that I sing, but the life that I live) Part 3
So many times what we think our life revolves around and what our life actually revolves around are two entirely different things.
Our life actually revolves around our:
1. Time
2. Talent
3. Treasure
4. Thoughts
5. Talk
In other words, our lives actually revolve around what we spend most of our time, talent,
treasure, thoughts and talk on. Notice what Paul said by the Holy Spirit, “When Christ, who is
our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.” Notice this phrase “Christ,
who is my life”. Not Christ who is part of my life…but Christ who IS my life! Paul’s life revolved
around Christ and His kingdom.
Our lives actually revolve around what we spend most of our time, talent,
treasure, thoughts and talk on. Notice what Paul said by the Holy Spirit, “When Christ, who is
our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.” Notice this phrase “Christ,
who is my life”. Not Christ who is part of my life…but Christ who IS my life! Paul’s life revolved
around Christ and His kingdom.
Let’s put first things first!
Last week we began shaing with you “10 First Fixes”:
1. Worship is not just the song that you sing, but the life that you live.
So many times, we condense our “worship” to a song. We have our “worship” service or
a time of “worship.” We hear our “worship” album and relegate the term “worship”
down to just a song. Now please don’t mistake me, a small part of worship is found in a
song (see Eph. 5:18-20). However, if I had to create an English synonym for Biblical
worship, I would use the word “obedience.”
We are to “present our bodies a living sacrifice which is our reasonable service.”
The Greek word translated “reasonable” is the word “logikos” where we get
our English word “logical” from. The Greek word “service” means “worship.” Why is it
our logical worship to obediently present our bodies to God? Because God owns your
body!
My logical worship is to present my body to God as an act of obedient worship because worship is
not just the song that I sing…it is the life that I live!
This week we continue with…
2. When you come to church on Sunday…don’t come to worship, bring your worship
with you. Then take it home on Monday!
In America we’ve become what I call “compartmentalized Christians.” We have
somehow compartmentalized God down to an hour on Sunday morning. Please don’t
mistake me, it is vital to go the church. You can be a Christian and not go to church…you
just can’t be a mature Christian (see Eph. 4:11-14, Acts 2:42, Heb. 10:25, Ps. 92:13-14).
As a pastor, I hear the various reasons given that they don’t go to church:
1) “There are hypocrites there.”
This is one you hear all the time. My response is, “Do you go to work?” “Why, of
course!” they will respond. “Are there hypocrites at work?” Yet they will readily go
to work…where there are lots of hypocrites. I tell people to come on to church and
yes, there are hypocrites here…but we can always use one more!
Hypocrisy is when our life does not match perfectly with our words. We have ALL
acted hypocritically at one point in our lives or another. I can tell you that Joy Church
and its pastor sure aren’t perfect, but we are the perfect church for imperfect
people just like you and me!
2) “When I was a kid my parents made me go to church…I’ve paid my dues.”
My response is always “When you were young did your parents ever make you take
a bath? I sure hope you still shower today!
3) “Church is all about the money!”
As a pastor who has been in ministry of some sort for 40 plus years, I have certainly
seen abuses in this area. However, the news only reports about the planes that have
crashed. They never report on the tens of thousands of planes that land safely every
single day. There are bad mothers, yet every May we celebrate Mother’s Day!
Money is amoral. It depends on what you do with it that makes it moral or not. If I
spend $20 to buy drugs it is immoral. If I used the $20 to feed the poor it is moral.
Money does not create character, it just reveals it.
Money should be a consideration but it should never be your motivation.
The gospel is free, but it’s not cheap! It took thousands of dollars to buy all those
Christmas toys over the Christmas services and as I mentioned, over the history of
20 years as a church we have given away over $5.5 million to the hurting and
hungry, and missions, ministries and ministers!
What we do with money is simply a reflection of our worship (Matt. 6:21)!
Worship is so much more than just the song that we sing, but it is the life that we live! Next
month we will continue our series!
Join us over the next few weeks as we share more from this series…