- Summer at Highlands, man, that's where we are right now. So many of you from all over the place have been telling me, you're watching us from wherever you are. Last week, some of you watched us from the pontoon boat out on the lake. I was a little envious about that actually. Hopefully, you're in an in-person location today. Myrtle Beach, down in New Orleans, we have people scattered all over the place, and I just would say, enjoy some vacation time with your family. All of us need a break and a time to refresh, and what a special time it is to enjoy summer vacation, right? I know we're looking forward to go on for the next couple of weeks on a trip out west with a group of folks that we've just become dear friends with. Every couple of years, we go to some national parks we haven't been to. So the teaching team is gonna keep you covered and a great shape over the next couple of weeks, and then we'll be back. So you can follow some of... Hopefully, we'll share a few pictures, and we won't die in Death Valley, of course I'm not looking forward to that one as much, but, hey, I love you guys. It's so encouraging today that I get to kick off a series on worship. So we were thinking, what could we really teach on during the summer that would engage all of you and help you to grow deeper in your faith? And here's the thing about worship. Worship is one of the things I get more questions about than almost any other topic, not from Christians, 'cause we wrap our heads around worshiping God, but from those of you who are outside the faith. And let me just say that, how is it a safe place for all of you that are a little skeptical about Jesus and about a relationship with God? You're sort of on the fence. You would not classify yourself as agnostic or atheist, by any means you're open, but you just haven't been able to answer the questions, remove the doubts to a relationship with Jesus. And I just wanna say, you're the kind of folks I deeply, deeply love. I was very skeptical in my own life, I had a lot of doubts about giving my heart to Jesus, and I really went on a path of the opposite direction for a number of years, but God continued to pursue me and he rescued me. And the greatest decision I ever made was a relationship with Jesus. So today, I wanna share a little bit on why God commands us to worship him because this is a question that those of you outside the faith, you struggle with. You stumble on this idea that you've asked me over and over again, around why does God command us to worship him? So let's think about that a little bit today because I wanna try to help you answer this question. There are so many verses all throughout the Old Testament and New Testament that let us know that God does command us to worship him. We find more of those verses in the Psalms, right? I mean, if you read the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament, you'll see it over and over. Let me just give you one example where the Psalmist says in Psalm 102: Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him singing with joy. So this question that some of you really stumble on is why should God expect us to worship him? He created us, but we didn't ask to be created. I mean, is that not true? Our lives are often troubled. Life can be hard at times, and yet, we are commanded to worship God. And those of you who are outside the faith, you see this incentive of why God would command us to worship him is that our God must be needy. That's the conclusion that you've arrived at. And that's what we are when we demand that people praise us. I understand that. I mean, if I were to get up here today and I would demand you to praise me, I would be needy and you would be disgusted, right? I mean, you should be, you should be disgusted. So what's up with God commanding us to worship him? You can see why people stumble at this. So what's the answer to this question that truly seems to cause people to stumble and question this command to worship God? Well, here's what I want you to think about, and maybe this will help you, but I want you to think about this. What if admiration was the highest pleasure and what if God was the most admirable being? Have you ever thought about that? Would not his beckoning us, summoning us, his dying to help us, admire him, be called love and not arrogance? I mean, if he's the most admirable person and admiration is one of the deepest longings of the human heart, not for us individually to be a admired, that's a sinful longing for sure. I try to overcome that over and over again, but I feel the wonder of having my heart drawn out to those admirable things. The beauty of a sunset, looking out at a mountain range, when you stand on the shore of the ocean, that for us, that is a free and pleasure. That is a selfless pleasure. And what if God is the most admirable person, and what if that is the highest pleasure then wouldn't he be loving in order to draw us into that experience and say, "Praise and worship me if you want true satisfaction in your life." I've been a fan of C.S. Lewis for years and years and years. And if you've never read C.S. Lewis and you're skeptical about a relationship with Jesus, please pick up any of his books because he is incredible at helping those of us who were doubters or skeptics or we couldn't just draw the conclusions of why we needed Jesus and these particular things in our life that kept us from faith. But Lewis had this same stumbling block about this command that God had given to worship him. And he finds the answer. And I want you to look at Lewis's discovery. This is out of his book and this is what he writes, and stay with me here 'cause Lewis's, he's a little wordy, but this is what he says. He says, "The most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escape me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world," Lewis says, "rings with praise: lovers praise their partners, readers praise their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game, praise of weather, wine, actors, motors, colleges, countries, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars. I have never noticed how the humblest, and at the same time the most balanced and brilliant, minds praised most, while the cranks and the misfits and the malcontents praised least. I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join in praising it. 'Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that is magnificent?'" So Lewis says, "The Psalmist in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as to regards what supremely valuable, what we delight to do, indeed, what we cannot help doing about everything else we value." And here's his answer, I want you to catch this. He says in conclusion, "I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment." Now years ago, when I am in this question and answer session and this stumble in my own mind over this command of God, this right here, this one sentence that he writes, not only answered it for him, it answered it for me. It completely changed my way of thinking about God. Now, look at this again. He says, "I think the reason people praise, what they enjoy, is not merely to express the joy, but to complete the joy," which means that if God would have your joy complete, he must command you to do what would make you infinitely and eternally happy, mainly seek and savor and say and sing his praises. God is the only one being in the entire universe for whom gathering attention for himself is not arrogant. It is not selfish. It is not abusive nor manipulative. It is love, pure and simple. So when the bottom drops outta your life and you wonder if God is still there, he is. And the best thing we can do when we don't understand what's happened in our life, according to scripture, is to praise the God that loves us more than anyone else. So if you're still with me, hopefully, I haven't confused you too much now that we've answered that question that God commands us to worship him. It's not arrogant. It is not needy, but it is the true avenue of love in its greatest form. He loves us. So let's do a little deeper dive into this idea of worship. Here's the truth. Every one of us, we worship someone or something. We just do. It's not a question of if, but who or what do we worship? And the scripture says for us to worship God first and foremost, in other words, our praise, our adulation, our adoration, our worship, more than anything else, is we are to worship, we are commanded to worship God. And we're calling this series on worship Greater Than. Now, here's why, because our God is greater than anyone or anything else. And when we put other things before him, the scripture calls that idol worship. Now, we tend to think about idolatry as a sin of the past. we don't hear that word even much in our culture today, something in Eastern mysticism. I mean, idol worship is contained to those who look at these little wooden trinkets. Are they worshiping these images like the golden calf or other gods that have all these desperate needs? We certainly don't think that we have modern day idols, in America, in Western culture, or that we would ever be idol worshipers. I mean, nobody even thinks in those languages, but idolatry is surprisingly modern and, I would say, it's very prevalent in our culture today. Part of the reason we don't think about idol worship today is because our definition of idolatry is off, right? I mean, we think idolatry is confined to those who are bowing down to these golden statues or in some ancient temple or praying to these wooden trinkets somewhere. And since we don't do these things, no, that just seems weird to us, then we assume we don't have any idols. We're okay. We're not idol worshipers, but we do have modern day idols today. Lots of them. And they may look different than idols of the past, but many of us still practice idolatry today. So I wanna look... And I just googled and you can check me on this. I just googled this stuff. It's pretty interesting that we have all this stuff right before us today, but there's lists of idol, modern day idols all throughout our culture. But let me give you four of the ones that I think most of us can resonate with, that are common idolatry examples that are all around us. And before we can do that, I think, first of all, we probably need to get a better understanding of what an idol actually is. This will help us identify the worship of idols if we were to be doing that in our own lives. So here's a definition. An idol is when something or someone becomes more important to us than God. It's what an idol is. When something or someone becomes more important to us, in other words, we praise that more, we worship that more, we value that more than we do our God, and it's become an idol. So when I hear that definition, it brings this concept home for me. By that definition, even good things, right, I mean, they can become idols when we make them the ultimate things in our lives. Anything or anyone can become an idol if we place the value of that thing or that person above our value of God. We see this in scripture, Paul teaches this in Romans chapter 1 to the Romans. He says in verse 22: "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men and birds and animals and creeping things." In other words, there's always been this challenge for human beings to worship something other than God. I mean, this is a tension that all of us have. It's been going on since the beginning of time. And a lot of us worship ourselves, right? But we see time and time again in the Bible that people just veered away from God. They just drifted away from God. It happened over and over and over. And maybe that's where you are today. Maybe today, you would look back in your journey and you'd say, "Man, there was a time where I was so much closer to God. There was a time where I really sensed God's presence in my life. There was a time where I just knew that God was leading me and guiding me, helping me take my next steps of faith." And today you would have to say, "Somehow, I have drifted from that season in my life." And what I would want to encourage you to think about is have you become a victim of worshiping someone or something more than God? Because I will promise, anytime we do that, it's happened to me in my life, we drift from God. So let's look at a few modern day idols today. What are some of the most common ones? Here's the first one, money, material things. Western culture, I think is safe to say, we can all agree on this, that we have bowed to money and possessions. And we've done this for generations. I mean, the pursuit of money and the acquisition of things is a guiding force for so many people. It can easily become an idol. And hear me on this, money's not bad. Scripture says that it's okay to have money and we have to have money. And scripture says money is a tool. And like any tool you gotta use it correctly. Otherwise, it's gonna cause a lot of damage in your life. Money ain't the problem. It's how we use and view it that can become the problem. It becomes a problem when we place our hope and our trust in money instead of trusting and placing our hope in God. What about our job, our status, our career? Jobs used to be a means to an end. For most people, it was just what you did to provide for your family. And now, in so much a Western culture, our job is who we are. I mean, so many people get wrapped up in their job as their identity. And today, we look all across and this is where we've been through COVID and all these kinds of things. Here's the thing, job dissatisfaction in America, it's in an all-time high. I mean, this was the year of the Great Resignation and people have been leaving their jobs by the droves, and could it be because we've elevated what we do to who we are. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't find the job that you enjoy, that fits your skills, I think you should. Nor am I saying, we should put up with bad working conditions, those kinds of things. I'm simply pointing out that maybe part of the problem is we've made our jobs, our career, our idol. Much of idol worship today, centers around the jobs we do and the positions we hold. What about physical appearance? Man, is that not an idol? I mean, you don't have to look very far to see an advertisement that promises to fix your physical appearance, right? And man, especially, when you get my age, I mean, they're trying to fix everything. I mean, you can fix everything and you look at that and these advertisers are telling you, you can look better, you can be better. They wanna make us look better and younger. They wanna make you look like your favorite celebrity. And we spend hours in the gym and thousands on products and constantly think what others are thinking about us. We worship our physical form. Now again, I'm not saying all that's bad, going to a gym is a good thing, showering, fixing your hair. I mean, you shouldn't go around with your hair looking like you had an explosion at mattress factory being cleaned. That's an awesome thing. But I just want to encourage you to be careful not to let this thing become the ultimate thing, because when our physical appearance is more valued than the God who we worship, it's an idol. And then the fourth, entertainment. My goodness, we are obsessed with being entertained. I mean, from Netflix to vacations to podcasts to Instagram to TikTok, we love entertainment in many forms. Actually, I think love might not be a strong enough word. I think we're seeing generations of people today that are obsessed with entertainment. I would argue that entertainment is good and a gift from God, but we should worship the giver not the gift. And we should enjoy our favorite things in some moderation. I could go on and on and on, but hopefully, you've at least seen that in Western culture today, it is easy to become a worshiper of an idol. So the question for us today and what I want you to leave with is this, who or what are you worshiping today? Well, that's a great question, ain't it? Because we are urged to worship God who is greater than anything or any anyone else we could ever worship. Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters." Our God sees your needs as even greater than his own comfort. Jesus, the reason we should worship him is he wants to help you understand that God is the greatest that we can admire. He is greater than anything. And Jesus, even himself, gave up his comfort, right? This is what it says in Philippians chapter 2, look at verse 6, this says about Jesus: "Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man. Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." He sees the need that we have and he went through this for us. Jesus came as a baby. He was rejected by the world, falsely accused as you know. Jesus died a horrible death on a bloodstained cross, and our need for God is greater than any other need we have. I want you to understand the need that we have for God is greater than any other need. I love that story, the woman at the well. Here's this Samaritan woman at the well. She's forced, because of her lifestyle, to come at the well during the hot part of the day. And the scripture says that Jesus had a need to go by and have a conversation with this woman at the well. He wanted to meet this lady. And the neat thing about Jesus, of course, he knew everything about her as he does about us. And he begins revealing her life to her. She, first of all, sees him as a Jew, and then as he begins to tell her everything about her life, she recognizes him as sir. And then she sees him as prophet, right? When he says you've had five husbands, the guy you're living with now is not your husband. And finally, she sees him as her Lord and her savior. He offers her living water, and what's she been doing? I mean, she's been worshiping water, right, and pleasure and food and power and success and recognition. But Jesus offers this dear lady living water, where she would never thirst again. And we know what happened, it forever changed her life. And she goes off worshiping the God who had saved her. She becomes the greatest missionary for her community, that's what God can do. We worship a God whose vision is greater than our vision. The scripture says his ways are higher than our ways. Worship, I think, is an opportunity to shift the focus from our current situation to a greater reality that I'm not God, you are not God, but he is. And he is greater than whatever I am currently going through. So let me ask you again, who or what do you worship? 'Cause you're gonna have to grapple with that reality, and in this moment, I want us to consider, is there anything greater or anyone greater to worship than Jesus? I mean, just wrestle with that. I love what Joshua says, "As for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord." Basically, he's saying is for me and my house... Hey, I don't care what anybody else does. We're gonna worship God. We're gonna put God first in our life. And if you choose today to fix your eyes and worship Jesus, then I want you to fill in this little blank for me, all right? Here's an exercises we finish. Jesus is greater than my blank. What would you put in that blank? What would you put in that? Is it a failure that you need to recognize Jesus as greater than? Is it a past mistake that you need to recognize that Jesus is greater than? Is it some form of selfishness or some kind of desire that you've had for success or wealth or struggles that you're going through? Is it a sickness that you are encountering today? Do you have some kind of shame or suffering? Or would you have to fill in that blank with a person? You've allowed a person to become the idol in which you worship other than God. I would just say Jesus is greater than any of those things you put in that blank today. All idols crumble under the weight when we worship God. Only God can sustain the way to worship. So when we see who God is and who we are and our place in the universe, I tell you what, guys, it just leaves us all with this sense of awe and wonder that this is the God whom we worship. And I wanna challenge you, worship God, put him first and foremost in your life. He will never leave you. He will never let you down. He will never betray you. He will always be there for you. And for those of you who are a little skeptical about your faith, let me come back to where we started. I just wanna encourage you. God commands us to worship him because he is the most desirable. And so it is not a needy God in which we serve. It is not a God in which we're disgusted to worship, but it is a God because of the command to worship him helps us to understand, he is the most admirable being in our world. He is. And so it's really love when God asks us to worship him. I just pray that today, something has clicked with you and, man, I just want to encourage you worship God. We're gonna learn more and more over the next few weeks about how we can worship God. I want you to come. I want you to be a part of it, so let's pray together. Lord, I thank you so much for guys like C.S. Lewis, that, man, just helped wrestle these hard questions that are often unanswerable for us. Why would God command us to worship God? Is it not that he is needy? And yet, God, Lewis helps us to understand that, no, it completes the joy in our life when we worship you first and foremost above everything else. I wonder today, as we've spoken, if there is a job that has become an idol, if there's a person that you worship more than God, if there is a failure or maybe even a success that you have placed in your blank, it just help you to know that Jesus is greater than our mistakes. He's greater than our failures. He loves us even when we have doubts and concerns and we can't hardly get to the place of faith. Jesus never condemns, honest doubting. He helps us along our journey. And my prayer for you is that you would just begin to worship the God who loves you more than anything else, more than anyone else, that first and foremost you would enjoy worshiping God. And man, when you do that, I wanna tell you, it sets you free, sets you free. And so God, I pray today, if there's one here that's never trusted you, that at least some seeds have been planted into that person's life, and maybe you're ready to go ahead and give your heart to Jesus because you know, you've not found pleasure in success, you've not found pleasure in worshiping all these other idols. And today, you're willing to lay your life down and commit it to Christ. Just say, "Jesus, I'm a sinner. I know I've made mistakes. God, I ask you to come into my heart today and save me. I surrender my life to you. And today, God, what an honor it is for me to worship you as the God who saved me." We'd love to know about that online if you just raise that little or click that little raised hand button. And if you're one of our in-person locations, hey, grab somebody or let us know on our website that you made a decision to trust Christ today. We just wanna come alongside you and help you know that Highlands can be home for you. Lord, we love you. Thank you for loving us in all your ways as we worship you in Christ name. Amen.