Worship

Worship

Text: 1 Kings 3:1-3, John 4:23-24

God is seeking worshipers. Notice it doesn’t say He is seeking worship, but people who will worship Him in Truth & Spirit.

In this text, when Solomon was sacrificing an offering, at this time it was NOT to a pagan god, it was to Jehovah God.
The problem was God had told them not to sacrifice in the “high places.” (Lev.17:3-4, Deu.12:13-14. Jer.7:31, Eze.6:3-4, Hos.10:8)

“High places” were where pagans would set up their altars. Probably with the idea that men were closer to the deity they were worshiping.
But when the Israelites started sacrificing to their God, they started doing things like the people that God told them not to have anything to do with.

This was a fragile time for Israel – the change of Leadership, and the time with no established place for worship.
David brought the ark to Jerusalem and put it in a tent, but it wasn’t established as a place to worship for Israel yet.
It wasn’t until Solomon built the temple that there was an main place.

And as you read through Second Kings, there were actually a number of Kings that it says something like: 2Kin.14:3-4 “he did what was right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like his father David… However the high places were not taken away…”

Our text is an interesting chapter.
At the beginning it opens with major evidence that Solomon was dabbling with compromise. Marrying Pharo’s Daughter was a compromise.
Sacrificing to God in the “High Places” - the way others were doing it was a compromise.
Yet ver.3 plainly says Solomon loved the Lord.
In just a few verses we have the famous account of God asking Solomon what he wanted God to do for him.

What stands out to me is I see a mixture of wanting to worship God and sacrifice to honor Him but doing it the way he wanted to do it instead of how God asked to be worshiped.
Close, but not conformed to God’s way.

Whenever I mix self-will in worship, it is no longer worship, but it becomes man’s method, flesh, self-will, doing things the way I want – this is good enough.

I think that was at the heart of the problem in Genesis 4 where Cain and Abel brought an offering to God. 4:4b “God respected Able and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering…”

Able brought of the first born of his flock (firstfruits) and Cain brought what he thought of as good enough. Close, but not conformed to God’s way.

What did Jesus say God was seeking? The Father is seeking those who worship Him in spirit and truth.

Do I worship loudly or quietly? With my hands held high or kneeling on the floor with bowed head? Dancing like David, or laying prostrate?

I don’t believe I can tell by the outward expression of someone’s worship whether they are doing things by their will or God’s.

When it comes to my worship, it is not what and how I do things as much as before God I lay down my will of doing things and worship is spirit and truth.

Why do we worship Him?

In collage, when I studied personal evangelism, - how to lead someone Jesus, an Important question was: “If you were to die tonight and God asked you “Why should I allow you into my heaven.”
The right answer has nothing to do with what I have done, but what Jesus has done.

You Tube video: Alistair Begg – “The Man on the Middle Cross.”

Think about the thief on the cross.
When he got to the gates, the angels must have asked him, “what are you doing here?”
He didn’t know anything about church membership. He didn’t pass the doctrinal quiz. He didn’t have any church attendance record. Yet he made it.

Imagine the angels interviewing him - “Do you understand at all the issue of being justified by faith?
After a frustrating examination, they asked him, why are you here?
I don’t know, but the man on the middle cross said I could come.

That is why I worship. Because of Who He is, and for What He has done for me.
That is why I serve Him – because He said I could be here.