Sermon Central
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Dancing Before The Lord (Worship 2) Series
Contributed by Joe Friend on Feb 6, 2008 (message contributor)
Summary: If we truly worship God, then our lives, like David’s will be seen by others as we leap and dance before the Lord!
I. GET OUT OF THE ROUTINE
If you haven’t noticed were doing things a little different this morning. It’s easy for us to get to the point where we’re just going through the routine of things. It’s easy because we’re creature of habit. We end up going through the motions and we miss the heart of what it’s all about.
Give ear to the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; let your hearts be turned to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What use to me is the number of the offerings which you give me, says the Lord; your burned offerings of sheep, and the best parts of fat cattle, are a weariness to me; I take no pleasure in the blood of oxen, or of lambs, or of he-goats. At whose request do you come before me, making my house unclean with your feet? Give me no more false offerings; the smoke of burning flesh is disgusting to me, so are your new moons and Sabbaths and your holy meetings. Your new moons and your regular feasts are a grief to my soul: they are a weight in my spirit; I am crushed under them. And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood. Be washed, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; let there be an end of sinning; Take pleasure in well-doing; let your ways be upright, keep down the cruel, give a right decision for the child who has no father, see to the cause of the widow.
God’s not talking to Sodom and Gomorrah. He’s talking to Israel. He’s being sarcastic because that is how their acting. But wait, aren’t those the things God has told them to do. YES!!! And they have done them so long they can do them with their eyes closed. It has become a routine. There is no heart in what there doing.
In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit broke up the routine. He must have gotten lost. He usually He only appeared to people on a mountain or in the temple. But in Acts 2 the day of Pentecost he made a wrong turn and ended up in the upper room. And from that point on he went from appearing in a holy place to appearing in a HOLY PEOPLE!!!
I believe that routine is one of the killers of worship. We do the same thing so long it becomes a lip service.
What if in your marriage your husband had a check list ladies that he went off of every morning.
1. Wake up. check
2. Get dressed. check
3. Brush teeth check
4. Say I love you. check
You get my point, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s only lip service. But we are creatures of habit and falling into that trap is easy to do.
1. Every Sunday you get up out of the same old bed.
2. Take a shower in the same old shower.
3. Put on the same old clothes.
4. You might watch the same old television before…
5. You walk out the same old door.
6. To get in the same old car.
7. To drive down the same old road.
8. Try to park in the same old spot.
9. Go into the same old Building to.
10. Sit in the same old pew.
11. Hear the same old songs.
12. Listen to the same old crazy preacher.
13. Leave the same old way.
14. Go to the same old restaurant.
15. And live the same old way the rest of the week.
I am not saying that having a routine is bad but when it gets in the way of us worshiping and causing others to stumble then it is bad. For example: When sitting it the same pew is so important to you that you would ask a visitor to move, THAT’S WRONG! When we sing songs that YOU don’t like whether hymns or choruses and you complain. THAT’S WRONG! Remember I said last week that we are not the audience, God is the audience. It doesn’t matter what song we sing all that matters is, are you singing it to Him.
At my last church there was this elderly man that had passed away and he wanted our worship band to play at his funeral some of his favorite worship songs. It just so happened that a couple of his favorite songs happened to be choruses. There were two ladies from church that came that only liked hymns they didn’t like choruses so when the band would play the choruses these two ladies would put their fingers in their eyes as a sign of protest.
