Creflo Dollar - Discovering The Essence of Worship - Part 1
If you have your Bibles, go with me to the book of Proverbs chapter 21 and verse 2, Proverbs chapter 21 and verse 2. Read verse 2 out loud together. Ready, read. "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes; but the Lord pondereth the hearts". "Every way of man is right in his own eyes". And it's amazing especially when you start talking about God things and church things, every man is right in his own eyes. So how do you make that distinction when every man think he is right in his own eyes? How do you make that distinction when every preacher think he's right in his own eyes?
That there's a scripture right there and it's being seen 1500 different ways. And he tells us right here, he says, "You can think you're right in doing a thing, you can think you're right in your own eyes". But he says, "Here's what you need to be thinking аbout: God weighs the heart". It's the heart he looks at. In other words, God is saying, "Whatever you created, whatever you manufactured, whatever philosophy you have, whatever doctrine you've come up with, the real truth of every matter is gonna be weighed in your heart". It's what comes outta your heart. The authenticity of any of your doctoral belief is what flows outta your heart. Look at this in the NLT. Is what flows outta your heart. And that's why I say the New Testament is a matter of the heart. It's a relationship out of your heart between you and the Father.
The NLT says, "People may be right in their own eyes, but the Lord's examining their heart". You can take all of your religious beliefs, what you believe, what you've known, what Mama... said. You know, a long time ago, it was hard to go up in the church with the older people and say, "Here's what I found in the Bible". "That ain't right". "But the Bible said". "I don't care what that Bible say". The Lord examines the heart. And when he examines your heart, what will he find? When he examines your heart, yeah you go to church every Sunday, what will he find? When he examines your heart, yeah you memorize scriptures every day, what will he find? When he examines your heart, yes you've kept the tradition of the denomination, but what is he gonna find when he examines your heart?
That concerns me. I would hope it would concern every Christian, 'cause I do not want to live my life, doing stuff and only get to heaven and I find out the true weight of it. I found out how it really weighs in. I thought it weighed in greatly because I dressed like a Christian, or I thought it weighed in greatly because you know, I sounded like a Christian, praise the Lord, bless his holy name. I thought it weighed in greatly because I was a part of the department, and I sung in the praise team and the choir. I thought it weighed in greatly because of the things people told me to do. I don't wanna get to heaven and find out that that was a false balance.
Man, I thought I was weighing in good. I thought I was there, I showed up with a long list, I showed up with that Pharisee, I prayed and I did this, and I did that, and I did this and I did everything they told me. But what if what they told you was wrong? Because it wasn't coming from your heart, it was coming from a performance perspective, it was coming from a traditional perspective, but it wasn't real. That should concern you. You're gonna die one day, you're gonna see Jesus one day. How will it weigh in with you? Is your heart in the game, or is your performance in the game? Are you a Christian from the inside out, or just from the outside, barely in. Do you love the debates of scripture so you can participate in the acrobats of your mental capacity to see who knows more about the Lord?
I don't wanna know more about the Lord and even get there and find out that half the stuff I thought I knew about him, 'cause God will do that for you. When you think you know something, he'll do a switcheroo or a turnaround and you'll find out you didn't know half of what you thought you knew about him. You thought he would be mad at you, but the whole time he was never upset, he was the one that was ready to show you love, love, and more love. But somebody told you something different. Let me show you one more scripture then I'll get started. Mark chapter 7 verse 13. Read verse 13. "Making the word of God of none effect". How do you make the Word of God of none effect? "Through your tradition, which you have delivered: and many such like things do you".
You make the Word of God through your tradition, you make the Word of no effect because your tradition has taken on a greater value than the Word. The things you have come to believe have taken on a greater value than the Word. The thing that you've been doing for 40 years of your life, and it appears to have produced some kind of results, have taken on a greater value than the Word. You are up there holding it onto something because you've had some great experiences, wonder what would happened if the Word of God were to ever to get in, there'd probably be a hundred times bigger than what you're experiencing right now. Maybe that's the mercy of God and the grace of God that's in your life, but the Word of God having no effect because of your tradition, your traditional way of believing, your traditional doctrine belief, your traditional doings, your tradition about what's supposed to happen at church.
There's some experts of the stuff that's supposed to happen at church. There're people that get 'em tell you and explain everything to you that happen at church. You know, somebody do that, they'll say, "That mean they gotta excuse themselves, that's an excuse". I don't even know what that is in the Bible. Where is that finger sticking up in the Bible? But it's a known thing in a lot of churches. Shouting, shouting. I don't know, you know, let's shout and fall out. You know, maybe I don't know, let's just honest with you. It's like, okay I see things in the Bible that's close to that, I don't know. And I figure it seems so intimate while you were in church, and it changed so drastically as soon as you walked out.
How does that measure, I wonder? Making the Word of God of no tradition. I thought the tradition that that was talking about, I thought it was the denominational tradition. I thought, well, "Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition". I was thinking it was just maybe the, traditions of Catholic church and Baptist church until I found out that every denomination seems to have developed some traditions, and traditions aren't necessarily all bad, until it makes the Word of God of no effect, until it makes the Word of God of no effect. You take a tradition of how to dress at church and now you use it to condemn other people, that's weird. You're telling me I can't come to church 'cause I don't own a suit, seriously? You're telling me I can't preach unless I have a tie on because preachers ought to wear a tie. Where that at? Where that at?
In fact, when the Bible was written they ain't have no tie. Where that at? What have you used and what are you using to make the Word have no effect? How are you believing, and that Word can't even affect you? What have you learned and that Word can't even affect you? And not only can it not affect you, but now you're using it to condemn others. How's that gonna go to heaven? What you gonna walk up in heaven and correct the Holy Ghost and tell him how things ought to be done? What if three or four people are prophesying at the same time in heaven? "No, that ain't God, that ain't God". And you're where God is?
Girl you how strong, you better do something about that. Because we are about to enter into a generation of young people, they're about to take over the driver's seat and they're not buying all of this stuff that our generation bought. Get ready, there's a generation that's stepping into this thing and they're gonna take us to levels we've never been in. My ministry is to assist those who are getting ready to come in, to assist those generations. Not really so much as mine, finishing up with mine and definitely not those before mine, but for those that are coming, there's a remnant of young people, male and female that's getting ready to take over the driver's seat, and their tradition will not stop the Word of God from having effect in their lives, so you need to get ready.
So this series that we're about to get into, I call it "Discovering The Essence of Worship". It appears to me that after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and even before he died, he gave warning about how things were gonna change, where worship was concerned. It sounds like we are getting ready to talk about slow songs. I've never quite understood what I'm about to teach to you, until I put my grace classes on. And I was so excited to hurry up and get to this point, 'cause I learned so much. I learned about worship that you don't get the chance to see me do on an everyday basis 'cause you don't live with me.
Let me start you to thinking by looking at some of this. What is worship? Is it singing? Is it clapping or raising your hands at your local church on Sunday? Or is there something more to it than that? When we say, "I really enjoyed the worship," we almost always mean I really enjoyed the music. Now the music and the singing is, this isn't entirely wrong, it's not incorrect to have singing at church, it's not incorrect to have music at church, you know that, but it is incomplete, grossly incomplete. However, when we must be careful not to equate worship with singing and music alone, but that's what we've done.
Only thing I even know about worship, when the word worship comes out, singing and music only. It's singing and music, but not only. The bigger piece, I'm trying to figure this out. The bigger piece has always remained missing. And that's the very essence of worship. Singing like what we heard, oh awesome. Music, oh don't wanna do without it. But if we've equated worship with just singing and music, there we go again, there's a whole big piece that's sitting out here that we don't know about. The word worship at its most basic level, means to ascribe worth, to ascribe worth. I am literally saying, "I am placing value on God, to be more valuable than anything in my life".
You know, when you get into idolatry, an idol in your life is based on the value that you give it. And you remember when there was this conflict in the wilderness with Jesus, and Satan wanted something pretty bad. He says, "Hey dude, let's make a deal. If you bow down and worship me". Was he talking about bow down and singing to him? Was he talking about bow down and, what was he talking about here? So worship is not merely about singing, it's about reverence, and respect, and value. It's a Biblical fear of the Lord. It's a humbling of yourself before the one who is better.
Listen to this, worship is what you do every moment of every day. It's what you do every moment of every day. I'm gonna use a word you'll be familiar with. It is demonstrating your allegiance to God every day. It is demonstrating your loyalty to God every day. It is demonstrating your commitment to God every day, and that allegiance demonstrated every day is worship. Worship is an everyday matter, not a Sunday matter. We don't know what's really going on while you're singing and praying and falling and praying in tongues, but we do know that every day the opportunity may come for you to choose that way or this way, and your allegiance to God chooses the God way and that's worship. An allegiance to God, you have an opportunity to do this or that, but what you proclaim at church goes with you, and when those opportunities come, your allegiance to God kicks in every day. That's worship.
Let's keep going. Let's go at a couple of scriptures. Hebrews 13 in the NLT. Hebrews 13:15 and 16 in the NLT. It's what you do every moment of every day. At this point, you won't have to worry about being a hypocrite, if you're living a true life of worship. Today you'll have an opportunity to do all kinds of things, but I have an allegiance, I pledge allegiance to God, the one I depend on every day, and to heaven and earth I will declare that I worship him, being in allegiance with him. He says, "Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God". How? "Proclaiming our allegiance to his name". Proclaiming my allegiance, my loyalty, my commitment to his name.
This is way beyond saying, "I'm a Christian". This is you now see my allegiance to his name. Well, why don't you do this? Because I've pledged allegiance to his name. This is what Abram did. Abram said, "I've already lifted my hands up before the Almighty God". What was he doing? He says, "I am pledging allegiance to God". In just a moment, I'm gonna show you the first time the word worship was used, it was (in Genesis 22) with Abraham, when he and his son went up to the mountain and Abraham said, "Me and my boy going up to worship God and we'll come again". They weren't going up to sing no songs, they were going on to pledge their allegiance to God, saying, "I'm gonna sacrifice my son knowing that I can trust you, either to interrupt this, or to raise him up if I have to go through to do, but I trust you, I've pledged my allegiance to you, and you will take care of me".
And Abram called that worship. I'll show you in a minute. Everything done from the heart. That's why we can't do things, from rules and regulations and traditions and all of that, 'cause it's not coming out your heart. It's not flowing from your heart. And any church thing we do or any church thing we teach and we're not teaching it to flow from your heart, questions your allegiance. Look at this next scripture and I think we'll be ready to get started. 1 Corinthians 14:25. "Get started"? Yeah. He says, "And thus are the secrets of the heart made manifest".
Whoa, what happens when the secrets of your heart are made manifest in a time where you're praying and having fellowship with God? Or are you just praying outta your head? It should be the most intimate time that you have with Lord. You're just talking to him, but you're sharing the secrets of your heart. He says, "And so falling down on his face he will worship God". Who will worship God? When that heart gets involved, it's a heart issue. "He will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth". Who will worship God? The secrets of your heart shows up, he will fall down and worship God.
My concern is, is that we have a, oh, I don't even know what to call it. We have this thing that we call church and I don't know if we're exposing our heart anymore to God. 'Cause we've learned how to shout, and we've learned how to dance and we've learned how... have traditions covered the secrets of our heart? Have we perfected phoniness so much that we don't even know how to be real with God? Are you tempted to even tell God the same lie you tell everybody else? Worship is a heart product. It is not a practice product, a training product, a tradition product, it's a heart product. I give him the allegiance of my heart, and from my heart, I do this. From my loyalty and my commitment, I worship him.