Brad Kilthau (00:31):
The question that we wanted to address today, is a question that goes this way about worship. It says, "is worship of God as big a deal as some Christians seek to make it? Is it that important to God, or are there other things that He is much more concerned about?" Well, it's a good question, but when we think about God and the need for worship, I think you gotta look at what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37. Basically, a man walked up to Him one day and said, "what's the most important thing in the Bible?" What's the most important thing? And remember what Jesus said, He said to the man, "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And this is the greatest and the first commandment." I think, obviously when we look at that, we find what Jesus was saying. Is that the worship of God is the absolute purpose of our life, is that we are to worship God. That's our purpose for being here. Now, when it comes to worship and the way it's expressed in different ways, through different believers, different churches throughout the valley, how do we have a God-honoring worship? And maybe this is maybe what the listener was thinking about with the question. But I think, when I was looking at this question a little bit, I thought, "well, there has to be a passion." There has to be a passion for the Lord. I know, when we love our jobs, we get up in the morning. If you really love your job, you can't wait to get up and go to work, and have something, you know, happen with the your hands or whatever God's given you, giftedness, to do. You just, it drives you. It drives you to do the best that you can. A lot of people have a passion for sports, and you look at the crazy things that they'll do for that. But when it comes to worship, we've gotta have the same thing. We have to have a passion for the Lord before worship will ever be heartfelt. Before it'll ever be, I believe, God honoring. And so a question that we have to, I think, ask ourselves when it comes to worship is, "do I really have a deep burning passion for God Himself?" And if that passion is there, you're gonna see that the worship is there. If the passion isn't there, you're probably gonna see a bunch of actions, routines, ritualistic type things, worship that's not really honoring to the Lord. And one of the passages of scripture, Gary, that I was thinking about when we look at this question, is found back in Malachi 2, especially in verses one through nine. And it talks about the corrupt priests of Israel, and how these priests were, as they should be, called to lead the people to worship God. But they weren't doing a very good job of that. What was happening was, when people were bringing in sacrifices to be offered up on the altar, they'd bring their old sick cow. They'd bring their old animal that had a lame leg or something like that, and they would bring it in and the priest would just go, "okay." And they'd offer up that sacrifice before God like it was nothing. And so they were letting the people get away with not worshiping the Lord properly. And then God comes down on the priests, as He should, and God gets after these priests because they're the ones who are to lead worship. And one of the unpopular parts of that passage of scripture is, the Lord said, "I will spread refuse on your face and on your feasts." And you think about that, it says dung. That's animal dung is what He's talking about there. And so, what was God saying? That He's gonna smear that across their faces and on their feasts? Well, what God is really saying to them is, "because of your lack of leading the people in worship, I'm taking you outta your position. You're gonna be like filthy refuse that's gonna be taken outside of the city and burned and done away with because you are of no value to me." And I always gotta wonder, what happened with those priests, you know? And how that all went down. But obviously, you can see that the priests had lost their passion to worship God. They had lost their love for God, which led to a lack of worship. And it's just going through the routine, you know, and I guess, what I'm saying is we can do that today as Christians too in the church. We can lose our passion for God. We can just go through the routine pretty soon, and it's like a regular routine of going to church on Sunday and whatnot. And we think that we're worshiping God by sitting there singing some songs and, you know, clapping hands and participating with other believers. But it's not from our heart, it's just another routine. And before God, you gotta wonder if that isn't sickening to Him as He looks at that, because He's looking at the heart. He's looking for people who really wanna worship Him because they're in love with Him. And you know, so you think about, how can we change that? How can we get that back, that fire that we need to worship the Lord? Well, I think one of the things, as we learn here in Malachi, is we need to get ourselves in a place of where we're under the teaching of the word of God that will bring about a love for the Lord. If you're not under the teaching, you're not in love with the Lord, because you're getting disconnected, you're not reading this love letter. I think about Mary and Martha when Jesus walked into the village, and of course, Martha invites Jesus over and she's getting all the house ready, maybe a big meal ready, all of those things. And she's getting frustrated cause she looks over and Mary just continually sits at the feet of Jesus and doesn't move. And so finally she comes over and she's very frustrated. Jesus can read her heart. He can probably read her face. And I love what the Lord Jesus says to her. He says, "Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but the one thing that's needed. Mary has chosen that good part." And that really speaks to my heart, because what the Lord is saying is, until you place yourself under me, under my teaching, you're not gonna see true love and true worship." You're gonna be running around being busy, trying to get the right things to look good for Jesus. But he's looking at us to get ourselves into place of where we'll really see who He is and the greatness of Him so that we can worship Him properly. And so, as I was thinking through that, also, I have to bring this up, Gary, before I turn it over to you. As I think about worship in the church, we have to understand the importance of our peers when it comes to worship. Because again, when you come back here to Malachi, because the priests didn't have a passion and weren't doing their job correctly, the people were walking away from their worship of the Lord at the same way. And, you know, as men especially, I wanted to say this, as men we're called to be the spiritual leaders of our home. Spiritual leaders, even for our wife, and we're to be the spiritual leaders in the church, and we should be the ones leading worship. We've got that same calling as that spiritual headship, that spiritual leadership that God has put us into. And I just wonder sometimes that, you know, if you walk through the church, how many men are really singing from their heart in worship? Most of the time it's usually, I don't know, the women when it should be the men. But men for some odd reason, they think that they can stand there like, you know, Mr. Macho, and "I'm not gonna sing this. I'm just gonna stand here and mumble the words or not even open my mouth at all. And it makes me look tough and it makes me look manly." But I got to think that's not manly before God. God's looking for a man that'll lead his family, lead his wife, and lead the church in worships. Let's always keep in mind our peers when it comes to worship also.
