The Imbalanced Christian Life: Part 1
The Imbalanced Christian Life • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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How’s your balance?…Would you describe your life as balanced?
We seem to hear that a balanced life is good…a balanced diet…a balanced scale…a balanced budget…a balance between work and play…home life and professional life…family and friends.
Balance is usually something good - something we all strive for.
Our culture and even our churches call us to BALANCE, but is that what God is calling us to?
Today, we will show that God, through His Word, calls us to live the christian life of imbalance.
This morning, we will see that our WORSHIP must be completely imbalanced - 100% what God requires and 0% of anything else.
And tonight, at our 6pm service, we will examine PRAYER, and the Imbalance that God asks us to have as compared to all other forms of communication.
Worship and Prayer - We must maintain an Imbalance in both in our lives as Christians.
And now we will examine Worship through the eyes of Jacob as he leads his family to the house of God.
I. Worship Begins With God
II. Worship Belongs to God
III. Worship Brings Us to God
I. Worship Begins With God
I. Worship Begins With God
Open your bibles to Isaiah 44 - we will get there in a moment after I read from our main text here in Genesis 35 -
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
Notice that it is God who initiates this act of worship.
God commanded Jacob and his household to worship God.
As we consider our balance in our worship, who or what are we worshipping?
True worship can only be for God, Yahweh, Adoni, our Lord God!
Isaiah 44:1-8 [read]
There is NO ONE else in the universe that deserves to be worshipped!
Any other worship is a false worship not only because the objects are unworthy, but also because of who initiated it.
When any idol is worshipped, it is always the worshipper who initiates it.
There are no idols that can call a person to worship them.
Man fathoms his god in his mind because instead of turning to the true and living God, he languishes in his needs and doubts and fears until he conjures up a god to his liking and makes him in his own image.
This is the idolatry of the heart!
We create a god of comfort, and ignore the God of ALL comfort.
We create a god of protection, and ignore the God that is a True Fortress.
We create a god of pleasure, and ignore the God as whose hand are pleasures forever more.
We fashion this god in our likeness, and bow down before it and lay sacrifices at its feet.
You can always tell if you have an idol when you begin to sacrifice the relationships around you so you can have that thing.
In fact, our lives do become IMBALANCED, but in a sinful way.
Let’s read the next verses out of Isaiah 44 -
Isaiah 44:9-20 [read]
Idolatry always begins with the idolator…NOT the idol.
But worship always begins with God - He is the prime mover!
Genesis 35:1 (NKJV)
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
This word Bethel literally means “temple or house of God”
Like with Jacob, God is calling us to “rise up” and EXPERIENCE Bethel.
But unlike Jacob, we are NOT being called to leave our geographical location.
WE are Bethel, WE are the temple of God!
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
Does our worship-life indicate that we are worshipping God…or something else?
True worship of God BEGINS with God!
And we worship Him from our hearts.
In fact, God deserves and expects our worship:
John 4:23 (NKJV)
23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
We must worship in spirit (with all of our being)
We must worship in truth: all of God’s attributes are worthy of worship:
WE are Bethel, WE are the temple of the living God, but are we living like it?
Does our worship-life indicate that we are worshipping God?
God has called us to worship Him - The Imbalanced Life of Worship Begins With God.
II. Worship Belongs to God
II. Worship Belongs to God
According to the text, this is broken down into Three Steps:
1. Off With the Old 2. On With the New 3. Onward With God
II. Worship Belongs to God
A. Off With the Old
Genesis 35:2 (NKJV)
2 And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.
Before Jacob could truly worship the true and living God, he knew that he must remove all other gods.
This is the IMBALANCE that God is calling us to!
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
Not SOME other gods…NO other gods!
This is God’s Imbalanced Command to worship Him alone.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
God desires ALL of me! ALL my heart (where idols begin), ALL my soul, ALL my strength - He wants it ALL!
We MUST have a completely imbalanced life of worship!
We MUST remove ALL other gods from our lives.
What god or gods have you been worshipping and sacrificing to?
You can tell you have an idol by what you are willing to sacrifice to have!
II. Worship Belongs to God
A. Off With the Old
B. On With the New
Genesis 35:2 (NKJV)
2 And Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.
As we consider our worship-life, we must worship from pure hearts and clean lives…but how do we do this?…How do we put on the new?
It is by the discipline of CONFESSION.
1 John 1:9 (NKJV)
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God actually does the cleansing - isn’t that good news?!?
Jacob and his household showed this purification by an external act of obedience to God- Are you willing to show this desire for purification by an internal choice to confess to God?
We must confess our sins - we must recognize that we have been idolators at heart, agree with God’s Word, and confess that as sin to God.
Do you desire to be PUR
CONFESS, CONFESS, CONFESS, AND THEN CONFESS SOME MORE!
God is FAITHFUL! His love is infinite…and God is JUST! Because justice has been served on Jesus when He hung on that cross and died our death!
This is our pathway to cleansing and to freedom!
3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem.
Jacob is calling his household to take actions based on their heart attitude of worshipping the true and living God.
Since we are asking God to cleanse us and since we desire to worship God the way He has called us to, our actions should be in alignment with our attitudes.
Notice that they give up ALL the foreign gods and the jewelry related to idol worship, and Jacob buries them under this terebinth tree. (*this is NOT and indictment against earrings - these were specific, pagan jewelry pieces that were directly involved in idol worship.)
If we are to truly Worship God, we also must be willing to BURY our idols…they must become DEAD to us!
What are the idols you cling to?
What are you taking into your life - consuming - that needs to be buried?
What website or app needs to be deleted?
What relationship needs to be reevaluated to make sure it is healthy and is leading you towards God?
What activity or event has caused you to drift slowly, incrementally away from the Lord so that now you look up and you are far from where you started?
<floating at the beach story>
We don’t often take a hard right turn off the paths of righteousness…but we do often drift slowly away
What do YOU need to bury under the tree, never to be unearthed again?
Accountability is often the best idol-burial method.
Accountability is often the best idol-burial method.
Find a trusted brother or sister in Christ, someone you can confide in, and ask them to pray with you about your idols specifically.
These are the actions of deliberate preparedness to truly worship God.
And we need this because although we may have buried that idol, we are going to be tempted to go out under the cover of darkness and dig it up again.
Accountability helps us put the shovel away.
These are the actions of a worshipper that desires an Imbalanced Life of Worship!…ALL of God, NONE of idols!
II. Worship Belongs to God
A. Off With the Old
B. On With the New
C. Onward With God
5 And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.
When we decide to live the Imbalanced Christian Life, nothing can get in our way.
There is no enemy that can keep us from truly worshipping our Heavenly Father
True worship is not our DUTY…it is our great PRIVILEGE..it is our expression to our great God for what He has done!…and NO ONE can stop that from happening!
III. Worship Brings Us To God
III. Worship Brings Us To God
6 So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. 7 And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother.
Now Jacob has finally arrived at Bethel and he obediently, reverently, and joyfully builds an altar to God.
When we worship our God…when our worship-life is an Imbalanced Worship-Life, we have finally arrived where we were created to be - worshipping at the throne of our Creator God.
5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
I see this happening in two stages for Jacob and Co.
III. Worship Brings Us To God
A. Worship Means Obedience
6 So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him.
In verse 1, God told Jacob to go to Bethel
And Jacob OBEYED! Worship means Obedience!
God wanted Jacob in a specific location for a specific purpose
God wanted to remind Jacob of how God had protected him in the past.
Three times in this passage there is a phrase that is used by both God and Jacob to describe Bethel:
Genesis 35:1 (NKJV)
1 Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.”
Genesis 35:3 (NKJV)
3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.”
Genesis 35:7 (NKJV)
7 And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother.
Earlier in Jacob’s life, he had deceived His elderly father, Isaac, into giving him his older brother, Esau’s, blessing.
Esau was furious and was plotting to murder Jacob as revenge, so Jacob fled in fear.
Gen. 28:10-22 [read]
And now Jacob has returned to that special place.
What place of obedience is God calling you to right now?
Not a physical location (although He could do that), but how about a spiritual location?
Are you living in fear, anxiety, worry, or doubt?
Do you need to go back in your mind to a time and a place where God was faithful?
Do you need to remember that we are serving the Creator God, the Sovereign King of the Universe?
Where or When is your Bethel?
the Imbalanced Life of Worship requires us to remain at our spiritual Bethel, even as we travel through this life on earth.
We have already learned that WE are Bethel…WE are the house of God.
Does our reality of BEING God’s house align with our actions of LIVING like God’s house?
Jacob obeyed the Lord and returned to Bethel, both physically and spiritually.
III. Worship Brings Us To God
A. Worship Means Obedience
B. Worship Means Sacrifice
7 And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother.
Altars are meant for sacrifice.
Jacob had to give up some of his precious lambs, his flock.
God calls us to worship, and worship always means sacrifice.
Here is a sad description of many Christians:
When we worship corporately, we sacrifice our time, our resources, our attention, our thoughts, our focus on other things and the pressing matters of life, and we give all our attention to our God.
When we worship privately, we sacrifice our time, resources, and even our own bodies as sacrifices before our God.
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life
“If you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him on one day a week”
Romans 12:1 (NKJV)
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
We are not dead sacrifices…we are Living Sacrifices of praise, and worship, and service for our God because of all that He has done fo rus and because of who He is!
III. Worship Brings Us To God
III. Worship Brings Us To God
Let’s look one more time at that final verse:
Genesis 35:7 (NKJV)
7 And he built an altar there and called the place El Bethel, because there God appeared to him when he fled from the face of his brother.
“El Bethel” literally means, “God of the House of God”
Jacob was reminding himself and us that it isn’t the altar or the town that made the trip worthwhile - it was the presence of his God!
It’s one thing to call ourselves the “Bethel” - the house of God…but it’s not about us…it’s about Him!
What is more important than the House of God?…it’s the God of the House of God!
That’s living the Imbalanced Christian Life!
Conclusion:
Are you living the Imbalanced Christian Life?
Are you living the Imbalanced Christian Life?
What idols have you been worshipping?
Ask the Lord, He will show you!
Our Worship must be 100% for God and 0% anything else.
Jesus lived the Imbalanced Life perfectly!
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God’s love is an Imbalanced Love - We offered Him nothing and He gave us everything in Christ.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Before we even knew God, and before we could have ever loved Him, He loved us!
The word “propitiation” means “complete satisfaction” - God is completely satisfied in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross! There are no good works that you can do to make God more satisfied than He already is.
This is an Imbalanced Salvation! Jesus paid it all! He’s not looking for you to split the check - it’s all been paid!
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That is all that God requires for eternal life - believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved! And the free gift of eternal life will be yours.
Believe on Jesus today!
Believe on Jesus today!
The Imbalanced Christian Life begins with an Imbalanced Faith!
A faith that’s 100% on Jesus and 0% on us!
The only way it becomes yours is by placing your faith - not in your self, your good works, or your religious activities - but in the finished good work of Jesus on the cross…Jesus did the ultimate good work of dying for you, being buried, and then resurrecting from the dead…and He did that for YOU.
Would you place your faith in Jesus right now?