Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter four. We’ll begin in John chapter four this evening. As I was studying for this sermon tonight, this week, and picking up again in this series in worship that we’ve started, as I got kind of my material together as I typically do, I realized I had about twice as many notes as I typically do for a sermon. But then I remembered we’re starting an hour early, so it’s perfect. No, we’ll see how far we get through what we’re going to plan to cover tonight. We may have to continue it next week, which we’re going to continue the series next week anyways. But this idea that we will be focusing on tonight in our study of worship is the object of worship.

So if you’re in John chapter 4. Please look with me at verses 21 through 24. We covered these verses in this passage last year as we have been coming through the gospel of John. But I want to start here this evening with Jesus’ conversation with a woman at the well about worship. So John chapter four, starting in verse 21. This is the word of the Lord.

Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming and now is when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such people, the Father seeks to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

We worship what we know, and you worship what you do not know. This evening we will focus once again on worship, and here Jesus points this woman to one of the problems of her and the Samaritans’ worship was their object of worship. They worshiped what they did not know. We’ve already laid the foundation for this idea of worship. We’re a few sermons into this series, but it’s been a few weeks.

So just to briefly review what we’ve already talked about as it comes to worship, we began by looking at examples of false worship. We’ll look at some more examples of false worship tonight, but we began with the examples of Nadab and Abihu. And then of King Saul, and in both of those instances, their worship was false because they worshiped in the wrong way. They did not obey God and worship Him the way that He told them to. So that’s one way that worship can be false.

And then we looked at some different biblical words to help us understand. What we talk about when we’re talking about worship, we talked about the word holy and that God is a holy God, which means he is totally set apart from us. He is other than us, he’s unique. And even though he is totally set apart from us, he still chooses to know us and to love us and to send his son to die for us so that we could know him. And that alone makes him worthy of our worship for eternity. And our worship ought to be a response to what he has done for us, what he has done in reaching down to us so that we may know him. So we talked about the word holy and how that affects our worship. We looked at a place like Isaiah chapter six and how we see the word holy. in response or in Isaiah’s response to seeing the holy, holy, holy God and how he fell down and worshiped.

So the next word we talked about was the word glory. And now glory is a word that we use a lot in church, in our singing, or even in reading in the Bible, but it’s a word that we don’t often think about what it really means. And as we spoke of, the word glory means something like importance.

God’s glory is his importance. And this word will be especially helpful to us as we think about worship. If glorifying God means showing his importance to us, that will affect a lot of how we understand what it is we do in our worship. Our worship ought to bring him the most glory. We ought to show that he has most importance in our lives.

And lastly, we discussed the word worship. And worship, as we saw and understood, is the recognition of another person’s superior status. And that’s what we do when we worship God. We recognize that He is greater than us and that He is worth giving the glory and importance in our life.

And then the last time we were together speaking of worship, we looked at three different categories in the Bible of worship. We talked about worship in our attitudes and how people needed to reflect an attitude of humility and thankfulness in their worship. We also saw worship in our actions. And then lastly, we saw worship as ritual or as ceremony and the actual worship ceremonies that God gave his people to worship him through. And that was all the foundational things that we talked about as we began this study on worship. And so tonight, I want to start to dig in a little bit in this idea of what is the object of our worship? What or who do we worship?

In the passage that I read to open in John 4, Jesus spoke of true worshipers. and what true worship is. This is one of the many places in scripture where we begin to understand and we get the idea that all worship is not the same. That we cannot just worship God however we feel like and call it true worship. But there is a difference between what Jesus calls true worship and other types of worship. One of the things Jesus pointed to, to distinguish between true and false worship was what is being worshipped. We worship what we know, and you worship what you do not know.

So the focus here is what is being worshipped. And then he clarified that true worship is worship of God. He says in verse 23, true worshipers will worship the Father. That is a qualification of true worship. The object of our worship must be God. True worshipers will worship the Father. So right there we have the answer for what or who is the object of true worship.

That’s not the only type of worship we see in scripture. It’s not the only type of worship there is. There is false worship in the Bible as well, and not just the examples we saw in Nadab and Abihu and Saul. Again, their false worship had to do with disobedience, but there’s a false worship in Scripture that is false because it has the wrong object. What is being worshiped is wrong, and so I want to consider Two types of worship in scripture, false worship and then true worship. Worship that has the wrong object, and then worship that has the right object, and that is God. And so the first type of worship that we will consider this evening, and again, we’ll see how far, we may only cover false worship this evening, we’ll see how far we get, but the first one is the wrong object of worship.

So false worship, the wrong object. And the biblical word for this type of worship, worship that has the wrong object, is idolatry. Idolatry. And the pages of scripture are full of examples of idolatry, as we will see. That’s what idolatry really is, is illegitimate or wrong worship. Worship of the wrong thing. Worship of the wrong person. Someone or something that receives worship, that isn’t God. That’s idolatry.

And as I study this topic this evening, to kind of look at examples of idolatry in scripture, it is interesting to see all of the different types of idolatry. Idolatry is not just one There’s all sorts of types of idolatry. There’s all sorts of ways that people got worship wrong and got the object of worship wrong.

And so I’m going to look at just five different types. There’s even more than that, but five types that we see often in Scripture. And you don’t need to remember these names or anything, but it’s interesting to see the different ways that idolatry shows up in the pages of Scripture.

And the first one we’ll look at is what some people call animism. Animism. Animism is where worshipers believe that objects are inhabited by gods or spiritual beings, and that these gods govern human existence. But the thing that’s distinctive about animism is that the very object itself is the god.

And we see this a lot in scripture where people made handmade idols for themselves. And they believed that thing that I made is a God. And that thing that I make and worship is what determines how my life goes. And there’s many examples of this, even within God’s people, especially early on.

For example, Laban. Rachel’s father, Rachel and Leah’s father had household gods. You remember the story of when Jacob left with Rachel and Leah and Laban chased them down. And he wasn’t upset that Jacob took his daughters or the sheep that were actually his. He was upset that they took his household gods and Rachel hid them and as Laban went to search for them. and couldn’t find them because Rachel was sitting on them and hiding them. Those were household gods that Rachel had taken. Those were the things that Laban worshiped. And Laban was afraid that if he didn’t have these gods to worship anymore, things were going to start going bad. So that’s an example of this type of idolatry. They make idols that they believe are truly determining how their life on a day-to-day basis goes.

You see this a lot with the Canaanite nations. In fact, in the book of Judges, you see it often, especially in an example like in the story of Gideon in Judges 6, when the images of Baal and Asherah, they could not defend themselves against Gideon. And you saw how the people reacted there, and they were terrified because, oh no, these gods that we made Can’t do anything, and they can’t defend themselves. And they were not able to be protected.

So that’s another example. But another one you see in Judges is in the story of Micah. Micah, the bad Micah in scripture. There’s a couple Micahs in scripture. One was a prophet who wrote a book. But then you have the bad Micah in the book of Judges.

And he made his own religion. He made his own cult religion. He ordained his own priest and made his own household idols. And Judges chapter 17 contains the story of Micah. But in verse five of chapter 17 of the book of Judges, it says, then the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod, and he made a household idols, and he ordained one of his sons, and he became his priest. So the story of Micah starts off with him creating this false religion. And rather than worshiping in the way that God had prescribed, he was an Israelite.

So he should have known how to worship. And yet he creates his own religion and his own gods. And as the story goes, people come and steal his gods. And then his religion is basically over because now they’ve come and taken over. And there’s the whole story that you follow. And from Judges 17 onwards, it’s just a mess.

But it starts with Micah creating for himself these gods that he worshipped. And all of these are examples of animism, where an actual man-made idol is worshipped. as though the thing itself is God. The passage we opened up the service this morning with, as Pastor Stephen read from Psalm 115, the psalmist is rebuking people that do this, rebuking people that make idols for themselves and worship them, and God speaking to his people through the psalmist. Again, the Psalms are worship songs of Israel, and so they would sing this as a worship song, but Psalm 115, verses four through eight. They’re speaking about people who do this, and it says, their idols are silver and gold, the work of man’s hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak. They have eyes, but they do not see. They have ears, but they do not hear. They have noses, but they do not smell. As for their hands, they do not feel. As for their feet, they do not walk. They do not make a sound with their throat, and those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them. These are idol makers. These are those who make idols for themselves and worship them as though they could do something.

But as we just read there, idols can’t do a thing. We’re gonna read later on in Isaiah where Isaiah really gets specific about how foolish this is. To make idols and then to worship them yourself, something you made with your own hands, and then to worship it. And the foolishness that’s behind this idea. But that’s the first sort of example of idolatry that you see, is these actual handmade idols. And that’s often what we think of when we think of idolatry, is the little idol that someone makes and worships. But there are other types of idolatry that have the wrong object of worship, where people worship the wrong thing.

Another one that is popular through seeing the different nations in the Old Testament especially, but again, this became part of Israel’s worship, but that was polytheism. Polytheism is a word that simply means many gods. There were nations that had many gods, and all of these gods exist simultaneously. They exist together. The nations didn’t just worship one god, they worshiped many. And these gods, they believed, governed different parts of their lives. They had a god for this. They had a god for fertility. They had a god for rain.

They had a god for every little thing in life had its own god that you had to worship and appease. And these gods may have idols that represent them, but in this idea, they truly believed there were these gods out there that did these things. And a very clear example of this was the nation of Egypt. The nation of Egypt was a polytheistic culture. They had a God for everything. They had gods that they worshiped that controlled different aspects of life. As you read the account in Exodus, the plagues that Yahweh, the God of Israel, brought upon Egypt directly confronted the gods that supposedly governed those areas of life.

They have a frog god. So what do we do? We’re going to flood the area with frogs. They have a god of the Nile. So what does God do? He makes the Nile useless. So all of these different plagues that he brings upon Egypt, we’re supposed to be telling them, your gods don’t do anything. That there’s one God who controls all of these things, and that’s who you should be worshiping. And all the gods that these plagues confronted were nothing. They were useless.

And so there’s other examples, again, that you see of nations that worship many gods, but that would be polytheism. And another form of idolatry that’s similar but different is called henotheism, which is a form of polytheism. Again, you don’t have to remember these names, but it’s just the names that are attached to them.

But this is the idea that there are many gods that exist together, but these are regional gods. Gods that govern a certain area, right? Again, this was especially popular in the nations that surrounded Israel, and even the nations that came and conquered Israel, Assyria and Babylon. They believed there were gods for different places.

And if you went to a different place, there was a god that was ruling over that one place. For example, when the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, came to take the nation of Judah out of the land, as he comes to attack them, and he’s warned, well, they have Yahweh, the God of Israel there, they worship him, so you got to be aware of that.

This is what Sennacherib says and sends to the nation of Israel and King Hezekiah, 2 Kings chapter 18. Listen to what the king of Assyria had to say. Starting in verse 32. Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you saying that Yahweh will deliver us.

Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvim and Hannah and Eva? Where have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands delivered their land from my hand, that Yahweh would deliver Jerusalem from my hand?

I mean, talk about brazen. Here, Sennacherib says, I’ve conquered every god there is. Look at all these nations I’ve conquered. I beat their gods. What makes you think that I can’t beat your god too? So to Sennacherib, Yahweh, the God of Israel, was just another one, another one of the gods that governs a certain nation, governs a certain area, and he could defeat them too. So that’s this type of idolatry. They believe there were different gods over different areas. So you see, there’s forms of idolatry all over the place. But the last form of idolatry I want to think about, and one that is even prevalent today.

Because often, when we think about idolatry and how we need to be guarding against idolatry, it’s not as if, at least I hope, It’s not as if we have little idols at home that we bow down and worship and burn incense to. Please don’t have that at home. But that’s what we think of when we think about idolatry, that we worship some little handmade thing because that was a form of idolatry.

But idolatry is simply worshiping anything that’s not God, giving honor and praise to Something in the place of God. Now, there are instances where people are worthy of honor and things like that, and that’s not what we’re talking about. That’s not worshiping them. But doing something to give glory and honor that should go to God to something else would be a form of idolatry. And this last form that we see in scripture, or at least the last one I’m gonna speak of tonight, is called humanism. Humanism is where worshippers claim they don’t believe in any God, but in effect they make themselves God.

Or maybe they claim a different type of God, but it really has no effect on their life. Really, ultimately, they are the God of their life. The way that they live and make choices and do things show that they are most supreme, that they are most important, that they are the ones who get the glory in everything that they do. Again, this is probably the most common religion of the world today.

People will claim, again, to be atheistic. Or they might claim a certain religion, but don’t have any intention of living that way. But everyone worships something. Everybody worships something. And again, usually today, that something is self. Most people today worship themselves.

And again, there are several examples of this in scripture, but one clear one is actually the New Testament. Turn with me to Acts chapter 12. Acts chapter 12. We see an example of someone who while he may not have claimed it, although he probably would have, at least not in our passage does he claim it, but he acts like he himself is God.

And that is Herod. And this is after Peter was freed from prison by an angel, and Herod is all upset about what happened. We pick up in verse 20 of Acts chapter 12. It says, now he was very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. And with one accord they came to him, and having won over Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they were asking for peace, because their country was fed by the king’s country. And on an appointed day, Herod, having put on his royal apparel and sitting on the judgment seat, began delivering an address to them.

And the people, I’m sorry, and the assembly kept crying out, the voice of a God and not a man. And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory. And he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied. Herod let them worship him. Behold, the voice of a God and not a man. Herod must be a God. And you can just picture Herod sitting there like, oh yeah, that has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I think they might be right.

And immediately, an angel of the Lord struck him and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last. Herod let them worship him because he thought he was a God, but the true God showed him otherwise. And I love the last verse there. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and be multiplied.

Oh, he fell down dead and eaten by worms. That’s too bad. Anyways, moving on. Nothing to see here, just another false God that Yahweh struck down. That is humanism. Again, he didn’t claim to be a god, but he acted like it. He received worship from people. And he did not give God the glory.

Again, we’ll come back to this a little bit later, but that’s just another form of idolatry. But there is a type of theism, we’ve been talking about all these theisms, but there is a type of theism that we should be practicing. And that is monotheism. Monotheism is where worshipers believe that there is only one God. And the existence of any other God is outright rejected. There is only one God. And this was supposed to be the position of the nation of Israel. This is what they were commanded. This is what they were instructed. The book of Deuteronomy was Moses’ instruction as they go into the promised land.

These are the most important things you need to remember. And Deuteronomy starts in Moses’ first sermon with, in Deuteronomy 6 verse 4, hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our God and Yahweh is one. There is one God and his name is Yahweh. And he alone is to be worshiped. That’s number one on the list. As Moses sends them off, with a manual of how to live in the land, chapter one, only worship God. That’s first on the list. That’s what you should do first.

As they go into a polytheistic land that worshiped many gods, as they were coming out of a polytheistic Egypt that worshiped many gods, Moses says, no, we’re different. We worship one God. And we know his name because he gave it to Moses in the wilderness. But it’s not what Israel did.

What Israel did was take a little bit of this and take a little bit of that. We’re going to mix it all up and we’re going to have our own way of worshiping God. And it’s going to include some of the things we found in the land that seemed to be pretty nice. like worshiping on these high places and sacrificing our children in the fire to these demon gods, believe it or not. And a lot of the judgment that came on Israel and a lot of the warnings that came from the prophets were addressing this very thing. You were told to worship God alone. And that’s the very thing they didn’t do.

This was a big theme for the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah starts off with God rejecting their worship. But then we get to Isaiah chapter 40, and starting in Isaiah 40, you can turn there, we’re gonna be there for a few minutes. Starting in Isaiah 40, it’s a fascinating passage of scripture, really from Isaiah 40 through really chapter 44. is what is called the false god trial, where God acts as a lawyer who is challenging the false gods and putting them on the stand before the nation of Israel. And he is interrogating them, trying to prove to his people, these are not gods. Stop worshiping them. In Isaiah chapter 40, we’ll start in verse 18. This is, again, where this trial of the false gods begins, and it carries on for several chapters. Isaiah 40, starting in verse 18, God speaking through the hand of Isaiah the prophet. It says, to whom then will you liken God, the true God?

Or what likeness will you compare with him? As for graven images, a craftsman casts it, a goldsmith plates it with gold, and a silversmith fashions chains of silver. He who is too impoverished to make such a contribution chooses a tree that does not rot. He seeks out for himself a wise craftsman to prepare a graven image that will not be shaken.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who inhabits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. It is he who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to inhabit. It is he who reduces the rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth utterly formless. Scarcely have they been planted. Scarcely have they been sown. Scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth. But he merely blows on them and they wither. And the storm carries them away like stubble.

To whom then will you liken me? that I would be his equal, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the one who leads forth their hosts by number. He calls them all by name because of the greatness of his vigor and the strength of his power, not one of them is missing. Everyone’s making their own gods, gold and silver, and if you’re not rich enough, you can make one out of wood. You’re making all these gods that you yourself have made, and you’re worshiping them. And God says, do you not remember? Don’t you remember what you’ve been told? Don’t you remember from the beginning? Who created all of this? All of that material that you’re making these gods out of? Who made that? Maybe you should take a hint and worship that god instead of making your own. Turn over a couple of pages to Isaiah 44. This trial, and again, all these pages continue this confrontation of God to the Israelites over their idolatry. But Isaiah 44, we’ll start in verse 9.

Those who form a graven image. are all of them futile, and their desirable things are of no profit. Even their own witnesses fail to see or know so that they will be put to shame. Who has formed a god or cast a graven image to no profit? Behold, all his companions will be put to shame. The craftsmen themselves are mere men. Let them all assemble themselves. Let them stand up. Let them be in dread. Let them together be put to shame.

The man crafts iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the coals, forming it with hammers and working it with his powerful arm. He also gets hungry and has no power. He drinks no water and becomes weary. Here again, God just confronting the idea of worshiping something man-made. Worshiping something made by somebody who gets tired and hungry and thirsty.

Another crafts wood. He extends a measuring line and he outlines it with a stylus. He makes it with planes and outlines it with a compass and makes it like the form of a man, like the glory of man, so that it may sit in a house. In order to cut cedars for himself, he takes a cypress or an oak and raises it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a fir and the rain makes it grow.

Then it becomes something for a man to burn. So he takes one of them and warms himself. He also kindles a fire to bake bread. He also works to produce a God and worships it. He makes it a graven image and falls down before it. Half of it burns in the fire. Over this half, he eats meat and he roasts and is satisfied. And he warms himself and says, aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire.

But the rest of it he makes into a God, his graven image. And he falls down before it and worships. He also prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my God. They do not know nor do they understand for he has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see in their hearts so that they will have no insight.

No one causes this to return to his heart, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination. I fall down before a block of wood. He feeds on its ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside. He cannot deliver his soul, and he cannot say, is there not a lie in my right hand?

God just getting very detailed in confronting the idea of worshiping something you made with your hand. He’s saying, listen, you cut this log in half, and you burned half of it in the fire, and yet you think the other half is worthy of worship. You carved it with your own hands. And as he gets to the end of it, he’s saying, you can’t even see the foolishness in what you’re doing. It’s like what Psalm 115 told us. Those who make these idols will become like them.

They have no understanding. They cannot speak. They cannot see. They cannot hear. They cannot walk. They can’t do anything. And those who make them will be like them. They will have no understanding. And he says here at the end, he cannot even say, there’s a lie in my right hand.

He’s speaking of the idol that he holds in his hand. And idolatry makes you so ignorant that you can’t even see that you’re worshiping a lie. You burned half of it in the fire. And the other half, you think, is worthy of your worship? How ridiculous is this? And that’s the whole point of this extended passage of Scripture. Just the ridiculousness of worshiping something that is not the Creator.

But against this backdrop of foolish idolatry, Yahweh, the God of the Bible, The God of Israel stands out. God has introduced himself by name to these people. Every other idol out there, every other false god out there was given its name. God tells them, my name is Yahweh. Use that. That’s my name.

Israel’s God has revealed himself. Not only in his words, in his written word, but in his actions, in what he’s done for them, in delivering them from the hand of Egypt. And Israel’s God has told them how to live. He’s provided a way to worship him, and he’s provided a way of forgiveness. Tell me what other false god can do that. What other God that they worshiped can do any of those things? And not only that, but God has done all of this and revealed himself in all of these ways.

And all that we’ve looked at tonight so far is the Old Testament, what is called the law. And it makes a little more sense why In this setting of idolatry all around, that David would say in Psalm 119, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. The reason why David loves the law of God is because that’s how God has revealed himself. This is what stands out among all of the false gods around him. He is the God who has done all these things. He is the God who has spoken, who has revealed himself.

And that is where we turn our attention to next. We’ll briefly look at the right object of worship, though we’ll have to pick it up next time. We’ve seen the false worship of idolatry. Now let’s look at the true object of worship. Yahweh, the God of Israel. As we come back to this next time, we’ll focus in a little bit on the name that God gives Israel to worship Him by. The name that they were supposed to use to worship Him. We see that in Exodus 3, verses 14 and 15.

But, why ought this God to be worshipped? Why is it that He, among all these other options, All these other false gods and idols that are present in this context in the Old Testament, why is it that He is the one that should be worshipped? We’ve seen a little bit already, but we’ll cover one of the reasons here tonight. He tells us. He tells us the reasons why He ought to be worshipped.

And first of all, the first reason why He should be worshipped is because He’s the creator. And he tells us the reason worship belongs to him is because he is our creator. We see the creation story in the first pages of the Bible in Genesis. But interestingly, in one of the first clear examples of worship, we see in the Bible, we see God worshiped as creator. The first priest we see in the Bible, Melchizedek. As he comes to Abram in Genesis 14. Genesis 14, starting in verse 18. It says, Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.

Now he was a priest of God most high. Then he blessed him and said, blessed be Abram of God most high, possessor or creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand. First thing he says, blessed be God most high who is the creator. The creator or possessor of the earth. He owns the earth because he made it. He ought to be worshipped because he is creator.

Another place you look and see this is in Israel’s worship book. In their worship songs, the Psalms. How often do we see in the Psalms that God should be worshipped because he’s creator? Turn quickly to Psalm 8. Psalm 8 is an excellent psalm of worshipping God for his creative work. It starts in verse one.

Oh, Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who displays your splendor above the heavens. From the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have established strength because of your adversaries to make the enemy and revengeful cease. When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have established, what is man that you remember him, and the son of man that you care for him? The rest of it goes on, extolling the creative work of God.

And David here, in his worship song, says how great is God our creator to the point that what is man? What is man that he would care about us? Why ought God to care for lowly mankind like he does? Other Psalms that As worship songs of Israel praise God for His creation.

There’s many of them. Psalm 19, 29, 33, 104, 115, 135, 136, 139, 148. There’s a whole list of them. They’re creation psalms. Psalms that praise God because He’s creator. The same is true in Isaiah’s prophecies, but in Isaiah there’s songs too.

But according to the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, in Romans 1, what is the heart and cause of idolatry? Why is it that when people get this wrong, they spiral into the sin that they do? We’ll turn to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1, Paul specifically speaks to this. As we’ve covered idolatry tonight, that’s where Paul starts in his letter to the Romans, starting in verse 20 of Romans 1.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image and the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen. That’s idolatry. Idolatry starts with rejecting God as creator. Although they knew God, They didn’t worship Him as God. They didn’t glorify Him as God. They weren’t thankful to God. That’s what real worship is. That’s what true worship is, is glorifying, showing the importance of God and being thankful to Him, first of all, as our Creator. But as idolatry comes in, men become foolish. exchanging the image of God for the image of his creatures. And they exchanged the truth for a lie and worshiped the creature rather than the one who created.

Sounds like Isaiah, doesn’t it? What we read as God challenged and confronted idolaters. You don’t even see that you’re holding a lie in your hand. That’s what idolatry does to us. It darkens our eyes and makes us foolish. We’ll come back to a lot of the reasons why God ought to be worshipped next Sunday evening. But one important thing to recognize as we read all of these texts where God is challenging Israel because of their idolatry and their false worship, one of the reasons why they ought to worship him is because God has made them his people.

And God doesn’t do that just so that Israel can be special. God doesn’t make Israel and call them out and make them his people primarily for their sake. He redeemed them and delivered them and made a covenant with them so that they could take His name to the earth, so that they could bless all the nations by letting them know who the true God is. And though we’re not Israel, the same is true of us.

This is why we ought to worship Him. because he has called us and set us apart as his people. And when we worship him and we declare his glory and his importance, we show the world who God is. And this ought to shape our worship and not just what we do in this building on Sunday. This ought to shape how we live our life every day. How we worship God every day of our life. In everything that we do. We need to consider what our object of worship is. Who or what do we give most importance every day? With the words that we say. With the choices that we make. The things that we choose to do.

Is God shown To be most important. Am I showing other people by what I do and say that God is most important to me? And through that they may see. That I worship God and they themselves might be drawn to the God that I worship. Because I’m showing them. He is most important to me.

Now we may not fall into the idolatry categories that we see in the Old Testament. You may not have a wooden idol at home that you bow down to. But we may fall into the category of humanism, worshiping ourselves too much. Who do I serve as most important in my life? Do I choose the things that serve myself instead of God? This is really what idolatry boils down to at its core. Giving something or someone the honor and glory or importance that God deserves. What do I choose over God? Is it me? Am I choosing myself? My own comfort and pleasure and desires? Is it my family? Am I choosing to make my family more important than God is?

Am I choosing things to do or say or participate in over the things of God? And what is it that’s motivating my decisions? Things like reading my Bible or time with God in prayer. or things like gathering with God’s people as he commands us to, whether it’s Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, whenever God’s people gather. Now, there are real legitimate reasons why we may be prevented from those things, but what is influencing my decisions when I choose things rather than the things I know I’m supposed to be doing? Is it the glory of God? Is it showing that He is most important to me? If not, maybe it’s the glory of something or someone else. It may be false worship or idolatry.

All of these things are things we ought to consider every single day. What is it that has most importance for me today? And as I live my life and do the things that I do and make decisions, what is it that is motivating me? What is it that I am showing is most important? One of my purposes with this series on worship is simply that we would consider what goes into our everyday decisions and our everyday lives as we live as people who ought to be worshiping God? How are we reflecting the glory of God in our lives?

We’ll come back next time to consider more the right object of worship and why it is that God ought to be worshiped. Stand with me, if you will, and we’ll close in a word of prayer.

Our God, we thank you for who you are. who you’ve revealed yourself to be in Scripture. As we’ve considered these different forms of idolatry tonight, we considered the ways that we can get worship wrong as we choose things to glorify in the place where you ought to be glorified. I pray that we would go from here and consider the implications of this for our life as we seek to Do things every single day that would give you most glory, as we seek to show your glory to people around us, as we consider what your word has to say and the consequences of exchanging the glory of God for the glory of your creation. I pray that we would be shaped and molded by what your word has to say and that this study would make us better worshipers of you, that we would be true worshipers, that not only worship you the way that you’ve commanded, but that we worship you. God, I thank you for who you are and for what you have revealed yourself to be in scriptures. We thank you and praise you. In Jesus’ precious name, amen.