Destinations-Focus

Welcome to our new series “Destinations”! In the next six weeks, we want to invite you to go with us on a journey. It will not be your last trip, your most adventurous or your most expensive. Hopefully, it will be one of increased life change and focus and it just might change the way you take ever other trip in your life.

The simple concept we will explore is that our spiritual journey should have each of us arriving at several very key destinations as proof that we are traveling in the right direction spiritually. Your spiritual destination is the second half of our Mission Statement: “Meeting people where they are and loving them to where Christ wants them to be.” Where you are growing will determine where you are going.

Our first stop will be the most pervasive, expansive, and glorious destination of all. The Bible calls it, “WORSHIP.” Having just come out of our study through the Old Testament, we should be very aware of the Temple’s importance. It was the place of OT worship. The word used most often in the OT for worship is the Hebrew word “hishtahvah” and was used 171 times. The Greek OT translated this word 164 times as “Proskuneo” and was almost always used in connection with the place where one would bow down and/or give reverence to God – the Temple.

When we get to the New Testament we see this word used continually as the dominant word for worship. What is unique is that it ceases to be used in reference to a geographical location. Jesus uses this word when He speaks to the woman at the well in John 4 as they dialogue about the issue of where to worship – a hot issue of the day. Jesus reveals that the place of “true” worship is no longer a physical location, but a spiritual one. See John 4:23-25 in your notes.

The heart is now the new destination of worship. Another key term in the NT for believers who are devoted to God/Christ is the word most often translated “godliness”. Godliness should be the characteristic of true followers. They should have a measure of godliness/god-likeness. The Greek is the word “Eusedeia”. It is a compound word – “Eu”=something done “well” or “good” and “Sebomai”= worship or that which has “worth” or “value”. Therefore, those who are “godly” are good worshippers, or give high value to that which they worship.

So, if we are going to be good worshippers we have to give Jesus the highest place of value in our lives. When Christ was asked about the greatest commandment, He said, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind. This is the first and the greatest command.” Clearly Jesus was saying that the most important thing we can do for God is to inject God into all that we are. Worship is not something I do somewhere. it is what I do everywhere.

The New York street musician answered the new budding musician, who asked how he could get to Carnegie Hall, and was told, “Practice, Practice, Practice”. I want to offer three ways we can make steady progress in our efforts to live in a place of worship.

1. Practice adding God and His perspective to all of your thought categories. How do the following passages reflect this as a way of life, devotion to God? Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 10:3-5 & 11:1; Col. 3:1-2; Eph. 4:22-25

2. Practice inviting God into all of your emotional responses. Look up the following and notice the connection between emotion and the invitation of God’s presence. Heb. 13:5-6; Phil. 4:6-8 and John 14:1-4 &15-17

3. Practice honoring God by all of your choices. Obedience is simply a decision to honor God in all things. Notice in these passage the connection between obedience and our love for God and our transformation. 1 Peter 1:22; John 14:15,21 & 23.

In His Love,

Pastor Jeff

 

Advertisement