The Big Diehl

“Worship is the humbling of self and exaltation of God.” - Ross Parsley

The imagery of a wedding to express the intimate relationship between God and his people is found all throughout the Bible (Rev. 19:7, Isa. 54:5-7, and Hos. 2:19). I’d like to show you one passage in particular. This is Matthew 22:1-14.

In the Bible’s imagery, God is the groom and the Church (Christians) is the bride. This husband and wife relationship should not be seen as feminine personification, but as a great description of the intimacy God wants with His church (past, present, and future).

If we truly want the Holy Spirit to move in today’s church we need to start living like it. God wants to marry a beautiful bride — not a whore! If this offends you, I’m glad – that’s kind of the point. It should offend. We say, “Holy Spirit come here and do amazing things among us” yet we don’t change our lives — we don’t clean up. God will come with great power when we have prepared for Him something better than a slutty prostitute.

God’s wants to move in our midsts. I believe God wants to blow our socks off. But we are not preparing the way for His presence.
Let’s prepare the way! Let’s put on our “wedding clothes.”

I was reading in Matthew tonight, and there’s one passage that totally jumped out to me. Check out these red letters, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). When I read this I immediately thought of the “gift at the altar” in the context of a worship team. Most of my blog posts are general and apply to everyone, but please allow me to speak directly to members of a worship team:

When we’re leading worship - we’re not only bringing our gift to the altar like its mentioned in this passage — its our job to help others do the same thing. How much more important, then, is it for the worship team to be in harmony before any rehearsing or “stage time.” IT’S VITAL. A worship team must be in harmony to remain a biblical worship team!

I’m blessed to be serving in an awesome church where the worship teams are nearly always in unity. But I’ve heard way too many stories of churches where this is not the case; worship team members build up anger against each other. In one extreme case, I heard about a guitar player who walked off the stage during a Sunday Morning worship set and announced to the entire congregation, “I’m not playing if HE’S going to be singing in the microphone!” Unfortunately this type of event is not a rare occurance in many churches. Praise God nothing that severe has ever happened at New Hope!

If you are mad at someone on your worship team, go fix the problem before any rehearsing. Talk to them or grab a pastor to help you — do whatever it takes, but do not try to lead worship with someone you’re mad at — it’s unbiblical and that negative spirit can drag the entire worship team down. It would be better for you to take a break from being on the worship team that week (of course that’s only if reconciliation in your heart is not possible).

I think Christians are a bunch of sissies. There are a few of us who fight against sin and spiritual darkness — but I’m under the impression that most Christians just feel bad about their habitual sin, they feel bad about those around them heading towards an eternity in hell, they feel bad that the United States is already viewed as a “post-religious” nation — but they don’t do anything about it.

That’s not the attitude that this scripture shows us. That passage talks about “taking a stand” against spiritual darkness (and it provides a battle plan to do so). James tells us in the Bible that faith without works is dead faith. That doesn’t sound to me like a Christian can afford to be a sissy. Christianity is not for wimps, yet too many Christians are sissies because they think its all about “being nice.” Let me tell you about a fighter.

I know one Christian teenager who was overcome by temptation and used his computer to access a pornographic website. He sinned. And he knew it. Most Christians would just feel bad but not do anything about it. Not this guy. He decided that he would not be sucked into such spiritual bondage. That same day, he un-installed the internet from his computer. Now he can only access anything on the internet through his parents’ computer (in a public room). Furthermore, the privacy in his own bedroom led to his struggle, so he got a screwdriver, and literally took his bedroom door off his hinges. His door is now sitting in his garage. He cannot even change his clothes in private. All because he didn’t want to sin.

This same Christian teenager realized he had become too lazy. So he fasted — from his bed. For 7 days straight he slept on his floor, rejecting the comfort of a bed. All because he wanted to be vigilant for God.

I’m not suggesting we all do these things. But I wanted to show us all that Christianity is not for sissies. We need to pick up our weapons and fight!

Tonight I was on the road leaving Auburn. I had my lights on of course, but in complete darkness they don’t show anything very far ahead. I wasn’t driving past the speed limit, at least not enough to cause concern.

As I was driving I saw a silhouette take form at the edge of my light beams. I thought it looked sort of like a person. A split second later the silhouette became more visible in my headlights and ceased to be a silhouette but a definite image of a person. A real, live, human being standing in the middle of the road. Not walking, not moving, and not waving at me. The person was just standing in the middle of the road. It was as if the person was actually trying to die. I was driving somewhere between 45 and 55 mph and the man was only 20 feet away, if that.

I’ve never stomped on my brakes so hard in all my life. I swerved to the right onto the shoulder as my brakes screeched my Bonneville to a halt. I stopped with my window parallel to the man — if I had not swerved onto the shoulder of the road I would have hit him.

Like I said earlier, this whole event seemed like the person was trying to be hit by a car — so when my car stopped my gut reaction was to jump out of the car and tackle the person off the road and call 911. That may sound overboard but I really thought this was a crazy or drunk person trying to commit suicide and I was going to prevent it if I could. The following events occurred before I ever could tackle the person.

When my car stopped I heard the person yell out in an old man’s voice, “I can’t see at night! I just can’t see!” as he stumbled back into his driveway. An older woman, his wife I assume, went out into the road to pick up the recycling bin that her husband was trying to take to the end of the driveway but had carried all the way out into the road. When I realized what was going on my attitude about the “crazy/drunk” person quickly changed. I immediately changed my perspective and offered any assistance. The woman just told me, “he can’t see well in the night. He just was taking the recycling bin out. We’ll be fine. Go.”

I could tell this was a very stressful moment for them (as it was for me), and probably quite embarrassing as well. I gathered that she really didn’t want me there so I went ahead and drove away.

As I drove off I naturally began thinking of the value of the human life. Not just the life itself, but the life within the life. Let’s not take it for granted. Someday we’ll all be older and unable to see in the dark. Don’t take your life’s life for granted.

God gave you your life - enjoy it.
Worship Him with it.
Thank Him for it.

Worship is an outward expression of an inward commitment.

Can we worship incorrectly? Yes, we absolutely can. This is a blog series discussing for examples of how our worship can be screwed up. The final example is called . . .

The Plight of Israel.

Amos 5:20-27

Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

“Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?
You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god which you made for yourselves.

“Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty.

***

Let me recap what just happened. Israel worshiped. God basically told the worshipers, “Get out of my face.”

Why?

The worshipers were going through actions, doing their “thing.” They were basically going through the motions of being a worshiper, but they were not worshiping with their life. Their acts of worship were nothing more than acts - there was not genuine worship in their heart - just the acts of worship. There was no basis for their worship. We can do this same thing today.

True worship is internal, at least at the start. Here are some steps to help grow your heart of worship:

1) Be certain your heart is right. There needs to be worship inside of your heart first. Understand that God is seeking true worshipers. When you understand his unmatched worth - worship will occur in your heart.

2) In your heart, collect the worship you have for God.

3) Express your worship to Him. Through music. Through dancing. By lifting your hands to Him. By shouting out. By standing quietly. Whatever. JUST EXPRESS IT TO GOD!

You see, the “motions” of worship aren’t wrong. Its when you jump to the motions without checking your heart that your worship gets screwed up. We must check our heart first - then do the motions (the EXPRESSIONS) of worship.

God wants our worship so much that he’ll take whatever we give him, right? Not quite. Our worship to God can become defiled. Inspired by a teaching I heard from Jack Hayford, “Screwing Up Worship” is a four part series of blogs explaining four instances where our worship can become defiled. Part three is called . . .

The Lucifer Syndrome

Lucifer was a glorious angel in heaven who had the job of directing all of the worship from the angels and all of creation towards God. Imagine that. All of the worship the angels offer to God. Plus all the worship that mankind offers to God. Plus all the glory in all of creation (planet Earth being only a small portion) offered to God. All added together, that’s A LOT of worship. Lucifer was a magnificent worship leader.

As Lucifer directed all of God’s glory towards Him, pride entered his heart. Lucifer told God that he would rise up and become like God — sort of as His equal.

God didn’t like that. God kicked Lucifer out of heaven. We know Lucifer today as Satan. The only person to ever get kicked out of heaven was a worship leader.

I don’t think that God waited until Lucifer actually walked up to God and said, “Yo God-dawg! I’m dissing you - I’m gonna hold the same position that you hold! And my peeps be backin’ me up, too!” I don’t think it was quite like that. I think it was more of an internal moment. Lucifer had pride in his heart - just pride. He didn’t actually do anything wrong yet. It was in his heart. The pride was an intention of rebellion within him.

But God saw it - even through the worship.
And God sees our hearts today as well.

True worship occurs when the sought (that’s us) realizes the unmatched worth of the seeker (that’s Him). At that moment — our worship occurs. Anything less than that isn’t really worship. Worship is all about Him. That phrase gets overused and its easy to read it quickly without realizing the significance of that. Pause for a moment and think about it this paragraph. Read it again if you need to.

If you’re someone who leads worship services - be extra careful of pride. Pride can slip in - little by little. So slowly you hardly notice it. If you think you’re a worship leader - yet there is the slightest bit of pride in your heart - you are no worship leader. You are leading songs, not worship. Leading worship means you’re directing worship towards God - and you can’t do that with pride in your heart.

Our worship is screwed up when our hearts are not focused on the unmatched worth of the Creator. That’s the Lucifer Syndrome.

If you are not a private worshiper, you will not likely be a public worshiper. You may go to church, and go through all the motions. But you will not likely really worship. Trying to worship publicly, not having worshiped privately is like the dry heaves: you are trying to bring up something you don’t have in you. -Paul Faulkner

Is it possible to worship incorrectly? Can we screw up our Worship to God? Yes, I believe we can. This is a series of blogs inspired by Jack Hayford discussing 4 examples of how our worship to God can be defiled. This week - its . . .

The David Blindspot.

So here’s what went down. God gave the Israelites specific instructions on making the Ark of the Covenant, and that when it was to be transported it was to be carried on shoulders (Numbers 4). God was clear that anyone who touched the Ark of the Covenant would die. In the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant was equivalent with the presence of God.

(This story is in 2 Sam. 6) Many years later, David became King of the Israelites, and he didn’t want to be king without having God involved. So he made arrangements to have the Ark of the Covenant brought into Jerusalem, the City of David. This was a great act of worship! All of the people were celebrating their hearts out. But King David screwed up in the midst of his trying to worship.

Instead of transporting the Ark on the shoulders of priests as God commanded, he had the Ark put on a cart to be wheeled into the City of David. In the transport, the oxen pulling the cart stumbled, and one of the priests reached up to steady the Ark on the cart because it was about ready to fall off. Immediately God struck that priest dead because of his irreverent act.

So David got angry at God. He was scared to even have the Ark come into Jerusalem at that point, and he decided to have it stored at another guy’s house for awhile. (This story does have a very happy ending - but you can read it on your own in 2 Samuel 6. Seriously go read it - its really good). This was a well intentioned act of worship - but David disrespected the presence of God. The worship ceased. This is the David Blindspot; he was excited about worship - but he was irreverent of the presence of God.

The David Blindspot is about irreverence of the presence of God (the Ark was the presence of God in the Old Testament).

What are ways we can be irreverent of the presence of God today?

How can we be reverent in God’s presence today?