Baptist Fellowship Church

Are You Bored With God?
Malachi 1-3

John 4:21-22

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

Very often, we worship at our work, work at our play, and play at worship.

How often do we ‘play church’?

We come to church as a matter of routine, but in John 4:21-22, we learn that worship is an issue of the heart. We should worship the Father in spirit and in truth. It should be a way of life for all of us. All too often we ask

“what can we get out of the service?”

Instead, we should be asking what can we give to God.

The heart of biblical worship shifts from focusing on ourselves (and our concerns) to focusing on God and His concerns. The ritual itself makes no difference. Worship is a form of ministering to God. The worship leaders are the prompters, the congregation the performers, and God, the audience.

Malachi 1:6-8

“A son honors his father,
And a servant his master.
If then I am the Father,

Where is My honor?

And if I am a Master,

Where is My reverence?

Says the LORD of hosts
To you priests who despise My name.

Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?’

“You offer defiled food on My altar,
But say,

In what way have we defiled You?’

By saying,
The table of the LORD is contemptible.’

And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice,

Is it not evil?

And when you offer the lame and sick,

Is it not evil?

Offer it then to your governor!

Would he be pleased with you?

Would he accept you favorably?”

Says the LORD of hosts.

The ‘cancer’ of complacency had taken root in the Jews in Malachi’s time. They offered God defiled food and inferior sacrifices. However, we know that God deserves only the best. A flippant attitude towards worship comes from a flippant attitude towards God – ie. the outward expression reveals the inward feelings.

The Jews in those days were guilty of a deliberate sin. Such worship is spiritual profanity, and is not acceptable to God.

Preparing for worship - Are we adequately prepared for worship?

Just as the preparations for Sabbath by the Jews begin on a Friday evening, so should we be prepared for our worship on Saturday evening.

Half-hearted participation – some people go to church, and then go through the motion, playing their ‘role’. We should, instead, be praying to God “Lord, speak to me today.”

Improper motivation – what are our reasons for coming to church?

Is it to get something for ourselves, or are we having an appointment with God?

Ultimately, the question we ask at the end of the worshipping is:

did I meet God today?

We are to take our eyes off our problems, and direct them at God. In true worship, our earthly problems assume a different proportion, and our daily trials will not seem so overwhelming.

The eternal solution, when we are ‘bored with God’ and ‘bored with worship’, is to get a new view of God. If we realize that He is the almighty God, we will not play at worship anymore.

There are 2 kinds of worshippers:

The flat landers – they live in 2 dimensions, and are well versed in the faith. They know the lie of the land, the routines, and they live it. But they are living horizontally.

The high landers – they are formerly flat landers who have discovered worship and have pushed upwards to know God.

Malachi 3:8-10

“ Will a man rob God?

Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,

‘ In what way have we robbed You?’

In tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the LORD of hosts,

“ If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.

Are we withholding our tithes, giving our worst and our least to God?

We need to realize the joy of tithing, as it is based on the grace of God.
No matter how much we give, we cannot out-give Him, who gave us His Son to die for our sins.

Mr and Mrs ET Chua

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Sermons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.