Power Struggle for Your Worship

Rom 12:1. I urge you, brothers and sisters, in consideration of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.

• Service:  to serve, or a spiritual act of worship

Worship is not just what we do to the music, but also a spiritual act of Service  

Power Struggle for Your Worship

Isa 14:12-15

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning (Cherub that guarded - Ezek 28:14).   

How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!

¹³ For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;

I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north;

¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.'

¹⁵ Yet you shall be brought down to Hell, to the lowest depths of the Pit.

After being kicked out of heaven, works to divert Worship away from God

God is a Jealous God – “His name is Jealous.”  Ex 34:14

He will not tolerate the worship of other gods (Ex 20:5; Deut 5:9).

Struggle for our Worship depicted best between Pharaoh & Moses

Ex 5:1-9

Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.'"

² And Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go?

I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go."

³ So they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please,

let us go three days' journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God,

lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword."

Let My people go… to worship me

Israel lived in the land so long, they toke on the worship values of Egypt

Their issue parallels our issue:

The whole purpose of the plagues was to deal with their misdirected worship

When they made the decision to worship, the enemy increased their workload

⁴ Then the king of Egypt said to them, "Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work? Get back to your labor." ⁵ And Pharaoh said, "Look, the people of the land are many now, and you make them rest from their labor!"

⁶ So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, ⁷ "You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. ⁸ And you shall lay on them the quota of bricks which they made before. You shall not reduce it. For they are idle; therefore they cry out, saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' ⁹ Let more work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it, and let them not regard false words."  

When we do Worship, it is with LIMITS – Pharaoh offered compromises

          Ex 8:25. Sacrifice in the land

          Ex 10:8-11.  Leave the children

          Ex 10:24-26.  Don’t take your offerings

The enemy knows that if I engage in complete worship

•  I will never be the same
•  I cannot be kept in servitude

Worship solidifies my relationship with God

Worship ‘draws’ me & God together – John 4, Ps 19

Worship restores right order – puts God 1^st & above everything else

Luke 4:5-8

Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ⁶ And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

⁷ Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."

⁸ And Jesus answered and said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan!

For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'"

•  Worship puts the enemy in his place – “Get behind me!”

Worship changes my view from being linear

Change my perception – magnify the Lord

Worship opens the doors of my future – faith that calls things into being

Isa 54:1-3

Sing, O barren, you who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child!  For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman," says the Lord. ² "Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. ³ For you shall expand to the right and to the left, And your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited.

Worship is the foundation for my prosperity

Prov 3:9-10

Honor the Lord with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase;

¹⁰ So your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.