Message

Today my message topic is “Worshiping When You Don’t Feel Like It”. Sometimes God seems a million miles away. Sometimes you can’t sense the presence of God. You pray, but nothing seems to happen. Things may be going wrong in your life, but God doesn’t seem to be around. Just like the lady in our picture, you feel all alone and it’s a rainy, blue day. In those times, you don’t feel like worshiping God, you may even begin to feel like God doesn’t care about you.

A lot of people don’t believe that God cares about them at all. Others believe that God only cares about them when their lives are going well, but if things are difficult, evidently God doesn’t care about them. In the Bible, David sometimes complained that God seemed distant. NLT Psalm 10:1 O LORD, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I need you the most? Have you ever felt that way? You’re in trouble, yet God just doesn’t seem to be around. You can’t feel His presence and things aren’t getting better in your life. You don’t feel like worshiping at those times, do you?

Some people draw away from God and church when they begin to feel that God is not helping them and they feel that God’s presence is remote. However, that is not the right choice. To run away from God when you don’t sense His presence will lead to disaster. When you feel low, when you feel like God is out there on a galaxy light years away, God wants to teach you about faith. God wants to teach you about continuing to worship, about continuing to trust, about continuing to do the right things even when you have no experience of God.

NLT Psalm 143:7-8 Come quickly, LORD, and answer me, for my depression deepens. Don’t turn away from me, or I will die. Let me hear of your unfailing love to me in the morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I have come to you in prayer. Here David is depressed, God seems far away, so what does he do? He prays, he trusts and he draws near to God in prayer. He worships even when he doesn’t feel like it.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my April 2, 2006 message entitled Worshiping When You Don’t Feel Like It

Currently, we’re in a messages series entitled “Worship Can Change Your Life.” You were created to worship God and that innate desire to worship is inside of every human being. If you don’t worship God, then you will worship something that He created. Worship can change your life because when you worship God you become like Him. When your worship pleases God, it will change your life. If you worship something other than God, you will become like it and that’s not good.

So today, I want to teach on the topic “How To Worship.” Unfortunately, although worship is a hot topic in many churches, either the teaching is bad or people are just not getting what worship is all about. A recent Barna poll shows that most people think worship is primarily for their benefit. However, the purpose of worship is not first and foremost for your benefit, we are to worship in order to please God. You exist for God’s pleasure, you were created for God to enjoy. That’s the attitude that we must enter into worship with.

Most people, according to that poll, look at worship as something for them. If it makes me feel good, it must be good worship. If the music and band are awesome, it must be good worship. If everyone raises their hands or sings on key or dances or claps or whatever, then that is good worship. But those common opinions aren’t correct, they’re not biblical. True worship cannot be determined by outward appearances because worship is a matter of the heart. True worship is worship that pleases God first of all. TEV Hebrews 12:28 Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him, with reverence and awe.

So there are basically only two kinds of worship, worship that pleases God and worship that doesn’t please Him. There are all kinds of styles of worship, but what is going on in the heart is what is important to God. NIV 1 Samuel 16:7 Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. So the very best worship in St Louis this week, the worship that pleases God the most, may not be going on in a church of thousands with paid professional musicians. The best worship in St Louis this week may go on in a small group meeting in someone’s living room or it may be happening in a middle school gym like this. Today, let’s take a more in depth look at “How To Worship” in a way that pleases God.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my March 26, 2006 message entitled How To Worship

Today I’m going to talk about “How To Get Close To God.” Why would you want to get close to God? Think about it for a minute, why do people want to get close to other people? Some people want to get close to other people because they love and care about them. Other people want to get close to someone else because that person has power, money or influence and they feel they can receive a benefit by being close to them. Another reason someone might want to get close to someone else is to learn from them, to follow their example, to become like someone. All of those reasons are also reasons to get close to God.

When you are close to God, you benefit from that close relationship. NCV Psalm 73:28 But I am close to God, and that is good. The Lord God is my protection. When you are close to God, you receive God’s protection. When you are far from God, you’re out of His protection. That’s just one example of how getting close to God benefits your life.

Some people think being close to God is just for pastors or other spiritual leaders, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Regardless of your career, you can get close to God. Getting close to God does not depend on some special gifting from God, getting close to God depends on you. If you want to get close to God, if you follow God’s principles to get close to Him, you can become one of God’s best friends.

NLT James 4:8 Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. This verse is both a command and a promise. God commands you to draw close to Him. He also promises that if you obey that command to draw close to God, then God will draw close to you. God is waiting for you to respond to Him. He has issued the invitation. He is calling you this morning to draw close to Him, you need to answer His call.

God is calling you to draw close to Him. If you ignore His call, if you ignore His command, if you ignore His direction, you won’t build your friendship with God. You won’t get close to God, you’ll miss out on all the benefits of living life in the presence of God. In fact, if you don’t live a life close to God in this life, you won’t spend eternity with Him. Heaven is reserved for friends of God, those who have a growing close relationship with God. So today, let’s look at some biblical principles to discover how to get close to God.

To hear more about this topic, listen to my message entitled How To Get Close To God

For many people, God is hard to understand, hard to comprehend. We can’t see Him, we can’t touch Him, we can’t hear Him with our physical ears. Some people think of God as a force, but God is not a force, God is a person. God is a person who has all power, all knowledge and is everywhere present. How can a mere finite mortal human being like you or I interact with such a person? God is the one who created us and He rules the universe. Most of us would be in awe if we came into the presence of the President of the United States. How much more if we came into the presence of the Lord of the cosmos? Yet, this person, the Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, wants to be your friend.

Today we’re going to talk about “Friendship With God.” You can be a friend with someone who is not your equal. That’s why I chose our theme picture today, a father walking down a path with his son, walking together through life as friends. You and I are like that little boy and God our Father wants to be our friend. He wants us to walk through life with Him, hand in hand. NLT Romans 5:11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God– all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God. When you become a believer, when you surrender your life to God, you become a friend of God. God wants your friendship with Him to grow deeper and stronger over time.

Friendships don’t grow deeper, relationships don’t grow stronger automatically, it takes effort. Most of all, it takes communication. Learning to understand another person in a relationship strengthens the relationship and deepens the friendship. Jesus said in NLT John 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a master doesn’t confide in his servants. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You see the difference between a servant and a friend is that friends confide in one another. God wants you to confide in Him and He wants to confide in you.

Today we’re going to talk about how to build your friendship with God, it’s what worship is all about. God is absolutely amazing, He is able to communicate with and be friends with millions of people at once and He wants you to be one of His best friends. God cares about you. He wants to be your best friend. He’s waiting for you, so let’s see how you can build your friendship with God

To hear more about this topic, listen to my March 12, 2006 message entitled Friendship With God