Greetings Flag Branch members and friends and thanks for taking the time to join me, Pastor Jordan, for some Fine Points from Sunday’s service and message “Objects Of Our Worship”.
Athens was a major metropolitan city during the time of Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys that he visited. It was not a city of destination, but while there, he was moved to do some theological teaching.
He noticed that the city was given over completely to idolatry. Idolatry as defined as the worshipful devotion to anything or anyone besides the only true and living God. There was even one altar dedicated to what they labeled “the unknown God”. Paul took that occasion to teach them about the true nature of God and worship of God.
One of the points Paul makes is that God cannot be worshipped with things or through things made with the hands of man. Nor can God be contained within anything made by man. Expressions of divine worship can take many shapes and forms but the expressions themselves is not worship.
For example, when asked to worship God with or through our giving, the act of giving is not worship. It is the spirit in which it is done that determines if God is or was worshipped expressed through the act of giving. Jesus made this clear when He used the example of spiritual worship when He compared the large sums some were giving and the tiny amount a widow gave.
Our actions, regardless of what they are as an expression of worship, mean nothing and are hollow as far as true worship is concerned if true belief, reverence and intent is not there within our heart. This is why Athens was described as idolatrous and why we are idolatrous today.
We refuse to worship God in spirit and truth, so we devise and seek out other people, places, things and ideas to worship. We do this because we are creatures of worship. If we don’t worship God, we will find something or someone to worship.
We seek and need devotion and we look for something or someone to give devotion. Our eager and passionate devotion amounts to worship. It gives us our greatest amount of joy and pleasure. It becomes that which we are most proud of, adore and cherish.
A good indicator of what we worship is where we invest our time, money, energy and resources. There are many qualifications and indicators for objects of worship that I cannot and will not try to identify. Just rest assured of one thing. We are all worshippers.
Something matters to us to which we are eagerly and passionately devoted. Our cities and towns and states and nation is filled with modern day Athenians. If we are not worshipping God in spirit and in truth, then we like them are worshipping something or someone else and that makes us an idol worshipper.
Idols are anything we worship that is not God. Idols don’t give life, sustain life or extend life except in some superficial way if at all. They exist only because we had a hand in creating them whether they be persons, places, things or ideas.
The first two commands God gave to Moses to give to Israel and us were about proper and true worship. The first was no other gods and the second no idols or something made to venerate or heap devotion. These commands were not given because God needs or desires our worship for His benefit. But because we need God and the worship of idols is empty and vain and is a pathway to evil.
God is the only One deserving of and worthy of our worship. We He returns, let us not be found as idolaters, but as true worshippers of the only true and living God.
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Pastor Jordan
