Worshiping in the Temple of Me

God knows that on the day you eat from it, you will see clearly and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:5

Eve wanted to be God!

The vice-regents and governors conspired together and then went to the king and said, “King Darius, live forever! We’ve convened your vice-regents, governors, and all your leading officials, and have agreed that the king should issue the following decree: For the next thirty days no one should pray to any god or mortal except you, O king. Anyone who disobeys will be thrown into the lion’s den. Issue this degree, O king, and make it unconditional, as if written in stone like all the laws of the Medes and the Persians.” King Darius signed the decree. Daniel 6:6-9

King Darius saw himself as God!

In both of these situations a thought was presented to the people involved. The thought was, Why Serve? You Need To Rule!

The enemy wants to get you and me to serve and worship anything but Jesus. He keeps bombarding us with the idea that somehow God is the usurper and I am the true ruler of my life. Instead we need to see ourselves as the usurper and Jesus as the true God.

In the movie Rudy a character named Father Cavanaugh shares with Rudy some great truth. He says, “Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have come up with two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I am not Him.”

That is true, but it forces us have to choose because I know there is the Lord God, the Master of all Creation. I also know there is me, the pretender to the throne.

I have to choose WHO I will worship: Jesus or me?

In my brokenness I feel a pull to worship me.

Why do we feel pulled to worship at the Temple of Me?

Proverbs 19:22
What a person desires is unfailing love, better to be poor than a liar.

We want more than anything else to be LOVED.

In an effort to fill that deep, God given need to be love we look to:
Food
Money
Sex
Success
Achievement
Marriage
Family
Religion.

None of these things are wrong or evil. They are not sinful. In fact they are all gifts from God.

The problem develops when we do what Paul talks about in Romans 1:25: “They gave up the truth about God for a lie, and they worshiped God’s creation instead of God, who will be praised forever. Amen.”

We worship the gift not the Giver.
We worship the creation not the Creator.
We worship the thing not the Person.

When we worship in the Temple of Me it leads to three things that make our lives miserable and lead to an eternity separated from Jesus.

The first thing worshiping in the Temple of Me leads to is ARROGANCE.

Ezekiel 28:2
Son of man, tell the ruler of Tyre, “This is what the Almighty Lord says: In your arrogance you say, ‘I’m god. I sit on God’s throne in the sea.’ But you’re only human and not a god, although you think you are a god.”

An example of this kind of arrogance is Samson. He suffered disgrace, torture, and death because of his pride and arrogance.

The second thing worshiping in the Temple of Me leads to is INSECURITY.

James 1:6
But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.

Insecurity means that we have to try and build ourselves up so that others will think we are important so that they can convince us of our importance also.

An example of this type of insecurity is King Nebuchadnezzar. In Daniel 4:27, Daniel rebukes Nebuchadnezzar for his wickedness. In the very next verse, verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar looks at the city of Babylon and all that he has built and accomplish and begins to praise himself. He talks about his power and his majesty, not God’s. He ignores Daniel’s warning and experiences God’s wrath.

The third thing worshiping in the Temple of Me leads to is DISSATISFACTION.

In Ecclesiastes 1:8-10, Solomon is expressing how bored he is with life. He whines about there being nothing new. Solomon see everything in life as old and boring. Maybe that is why he had so many wives.

Solomon’s dissatisfaction with life led him to become dissatisfied with God and to pursue other gods. This ultimately brought about the kingdom of Israel being divided into two nations.

So where then does worshiping in the Temple of God lead?

First, it leads to TRUST & REJOICING.

Psalm 13:5
But I trust in Your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation.

Second, it leads to NOT BEING SHAKEN.

Psalm 21:7
For the king trusts in the Lord, through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken.

Third, it leads to COMFORT.

Psalm 119:76
May Your unfailing love be my comfort, according to Your promise to Your servant.

Fourth, it leads to THE SILENCING OF MY ENEMIES.

Psalm 143:12
In Your unfailing love, silence my enemies, destroy all my foes, for I am Your servant.

Fifth, it leads to SATISFACTION.

Psalm 90:14
Satisfy us in the morning with Your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Notice that when we worship in the Temple of God we receive what we want most, His unfailing love, which then brings some many other blessings to us.

So how do we move from worshiping in the Temple of Me to worshiping in the Temple of God?

God tells us how and the awesome results in Hosea 10:12. It says, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that He may come and rain righteousness upon you.”

We sow righteousness.
We remove the idols, false gods from our lives.
We seek God.

The Result:
God gives us a crop of steadfast love.
God rains down righteousness.

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls means we make Jesus and only Jesus our God.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls means we let King Jesus sit on the throne of our lives and rule as our Absolute Sole Authority.

The Question: Will I worship God and find my true place in His creation, the place God has arranged for me? Or will I worship me and decide I can somehow do what no one else in all of history has done, come up with a better plan for my life than my Creator?

One choice leads to a life, temporary and eternal, of being satisfied.
One choice leads to a life, temporary and eternal, of being dissatisfied.

YOU CHOOSE!

Worshiping Jesus Not Joe Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe