Four Powerful Prophets of Your Future
Part 3
“What You Worship”
Ps 135:15-18 “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. 16 They have mouths, but they do not speak; Eyes they have, but they do not see; 17 They have ears, but they do not hear;
Nor is there any breath in their mouths. 18 Those who make them will become like them, yes, everyone who trusts in them.”
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Bible verses like these reveal that OT Israel had a chronic problem with worshiping idols.
Over and over again God warned them not to turn to any God but Him, which is idolatry.
And over and over again they fell back into the same old sin of worshiping false gods.
Though their idols were often made of silver and gold they were still worthless.
And in verse 18 we find a powerful truth that I want to land on today:
They that make them will become like them.
In other words, your character will be shaped, molded, and formed by what you worship.
Greg Beale wrote a book entitled, We Become What We Worship, where he says:
“What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or for restoration.”
He writes that “Our worship and our affections right now are pointers to a future trajectory. Our worship is either aimed at our ruin, or our worship is aimed at our restoration, but it is aimed in either case.”
“We are becoming what we worship.”
That’s why what you worship becomes a powerful prophet of your future!
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Now, lets start with some undeniable truths about worship—FIRST:
I. We all worship something
There is a drive in all of us to bow down to something, to pay homage to something, to worship something.
What you worship you will value above all else.
We will sacrifice time, energy, and things of lesser value for what we worship.
What you worship captures your heart.
—And let me add that worship is more than what you lift your hands to.
It’s more than someone you sing to.
The word “worship” comes from “worth-ship”.
To worship something is actually to prize something above everything else—to honor and love it as having the highest worth.
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In America we worship all kinds of idols and cherish them as having the highest worth.
We worship sports and sports figures, entertainers or some other famous person.
We even have a popular show called American Idol where essentially we worship someone’s talent!
—I vividly recall rock concerts I went to as a teenager and how the crowd would run to the front of the stage with hands uplifted toward the rock stars.
It was adoration to the point of worship.
This is why they’re called rock gods!
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In America we worship materialism, things, stuff, wealth, possessions.
We worship success, careers, and achievement, which we measure by how much money someone ends up with.
We worship at the altar of self—self help, self analysis, self serving, self realization, self actualizing, selfies, self this and self that.
Even Atheists worship—they worship at the altar of evolution though it is still called a “theory.”
Skeptics worship.
Republicans and Democrats worship.
Everyone, everywhere, worships.
It’s the fundamental drive of life and one of the unique distinctions of humanity.
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The Bible says that every human being has a deep inner sense of eternity:
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He (God) has planted eternity in the human heart…”
God has put within us a sense, an awareness, that there is more beyond this life.
Something greater than us is out there and we long to worship whatever that is!
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We even worship things we don’t fully understand!
For instance, Jesus told the woman at the well, “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.”—John 4:22
So the woman at the well worshiped a god she didn’t even know!
Why would she do that?
Because we’re wired to worship!
God made human beings with a unique capacity to worship, even if its in ignorance!
And again, the Bible says that whatever we worship will shape our character, our values, and where we wind up in life.
What you worship will downgrade you or upgrade you.
It will add to your life or subtract from it.
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A second undeniable fact about worship is—if you don’t worship the true and living God…
II. You may even create your own god.
The Bible says that God created man in his own image, but fallen man creates a god in HIS own image.
They even sometimes create their own Jesus.
They’ll create a Jesus that’s all about money and material wealth,
or a Jesus that never, ever judges,
or a Jesus that is of their particular race,
or a Jesus that places His seal of approval on the lifestyle they want to pursue,
or a Jesus that is Republican, or Democrat, or a Socialist, or a Methodist, or a Baptist, and on it goes.
But what the world is dying for is the REAL Jesus found in the pages of Scripture!
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Israel constantly created their own gods to worship—god’s that promoted sensuality and demonic mysticism.
In the wilderness they forced Aaron to make the golden calf—and fell into sexual sin while worshiping it.
Later on in the Promised Land they continuously fell to worshiping the false and cruel gods of Baal and Ashtoreth—sacrificing their children to them.
In the book of Acts we find the entire city of Ephesus given over to worshiping the false goddess Diana.
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The Apostle Paul warns in Romans chapter 1 that one of the signs of a collapsing culture is what it worships:
“Instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they took wood and stone and made idols for themselves, carving them to look like mere birds and animals and snakes and mere men.”—Ro. 1:23 LB
Wow! When a society or individual refuses to worship the true God, they spiral down into stupidity, worshiping nonsensical things:
Birds, animals, snakes, insects—things God created that are not gods at all!
But the problem is that a false god can’t hear you.
It can’t see you.
It isn’t aware of you.
It can’t answer your prayers or cries for help.
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And then a third fact of worship is:
III. What you worship affects every area of your life, starting with your thinking.
Worshiping the true God keeps your mind in the light!
But when we fail to worship the true Creator God our thinking goes sideways.
“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. . . . As a result, their minds became dark and confused” (Romans 1:21 NLT).
The “They” here is any person, society, or civilization that wouldn’t worship the true God or even give Him thanks.
The consequence was their minds were plunged into spiritual darkness.
What we worship may not seem like a big deal to us but it is to God.
Because when there is a breakdown in worshiping Him, that person or society will always go down.
And one of the consequences is they become like what they worship, which in turn becomes a prophet of their future.
Remember: “Those who make them will become like them, yes, everyone who trusts in them.”—Ps. 135:18
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Now, all of this brings us to a question:
Can a born again child of God get off track into worshiping the wrong thing?
Yes!
So let me leave you with the one, surefire way to keep yourself on the right worship track:
“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
Our bodies mean everything—our hearts, minds, hands, feet, eyes, thoughts, actions, aspirations, dreams, desires, attitudes—all are to be presented to God.
ILLUS: Hokey Pokey