Made to Worship | Week 1

You have no idea who I am. You're new in the last couple weeks, so welcome. You came to a great church. But hey, we're here to start a new series, just like the bumper said there, called Made to Worship. Cause that's what we were made for.

But the reality is, we weren't just made for that, is here is a truth that you might have a problem with or think is that true is everyone in this room and everyone on this planet worships. We do. Some of you say, well, not everyone goes to church, not everyone knows God, doesn't matter. We all worship

because that's what we were made to do. The question is not if, it's what and how. Plain and simple. Now some of you might still be more skeptical. I can prove this point that we are made to worship and we will worship something with one word, sports. I can even prove it further with two words, sports fans.

I mean, some of the stuff that we will do when we love a sport is worshipful. I mean, it is all in. We are so committed. Matter of fact, I got a picture here of of a sports fan that proves my point. That is a tattoo. It's called the Jordan jersey tattoo,

and unlike how I freaked everybody out with dust mites a few weeks ago, I will not show you the front. That's a full jersey. It goes all the way around to the front too, but that's disturbing, so we won't look at that. Think about that. People are like, man I love sports. Get it.

I get it. I've worshipped at the altar of baseball in

the past. I remember the first time I went to a Major League Baseball stadium. I grew up around here, so I saw Major Leagues, but it was spring training. And the first time I was ever to walk in to an actual stadium, it was one with a lot of history and epic nature to it. It was Dodgers Stadium. But it was

even more impressive because it was back in the seventies when they could win a World Series.

Sorry. I'm trying to keep to my truce of another team I'm not supposed to bash on, so I'm trying out some new material. Sorry. But but no. It was and and just walking in there as a kid loving baseball, the the the field, the players, the the scale of it was so impressive. And I was like, wow. But that was man made.

But I also remember a time that that is probably the closest before I really knew the Lord. I kind of started to be aware of a Lord,

of a God, but it was still more of I was just awestruck. And that was when I was a kid.

My family was traveling in Northern Arizona, and our car broke down on some weird road. It wasn't even a main highway. It was just out in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, there was like a rest stop, which was basically you pulled off the road, there was two porta potties and a payphone. And and so we we called a tow

truck, and my dad said, were so far from anywhere, it's gonna be over an hour before anyone got there. And it was this crisp, cool mountain night, and crystal clear skies, and we went out into this clearing, and my mom sat a blanket down, and we got all comfy, and we looked at the stars.

And I don't know about you, but if you grew up in a city, I grew up in the Phoenix area, on a clear night, there's like, what, 19 stars you can see in the sky, if that. Have you ever been in the middle of nowhere where it is there's no light pollution, it's a clear night, and looked up at the sky?

There is more stars than there is black space. It it is filled. I was like, what? And then we were so lucky that a meteor shower hit while we were sitting there. And I sat there looking up just about every five to seven seconds. It was like, and I was like, this is cooler than Star Wars. I thought it was so epic, but

even as a kid, this other feeling kind of came over me. As I looked up at all those stars, I I was struck with the idea of how small I was. I'm like, wow. Who am I compared to all this universe? Who am I? And and and and that moment, the beginning of that feeling to see the majesty of creation,

that's the beginning of what it means to be worship. We have to understand this gap between us and God. Now some of us get stuck at just the creation point. Some of us just get stuck at we worship creation, not just sports, not just this. That you but we never ask the next question of, that is so epic, but who made that?

And the reason I think about the story of watching this night sky and being blown away by the smallness of me, the bigness of all this, but then turning it towards what it means in light of God, is exactly what Psalm eight kind of address.

See Psalm eight in the book of Psalms, if you're not familiar with the Bible, you have one, you can turn there. Psalms is right in the middle of of the Bible, and it's you might if you're not used to seeing Bible name stuff, you might think it says psalms, but it's psalms, the p is silent. It's psalent.

And Psalms eight is written by a guy named David, who was a king of Israel. You might have heard a little bit about bible stuff. He he slayed a giant named Goliath, but but long before that he was a shepherd. And when and these Psalms are are poetry

that's God's word that they would actually sing them. They were their their songs, their worship songs.

But he he wrote this, and in one of the verses in here refers to the fact of him being a shepherd, like him looking at the sky. You can almost picture him as as a younger man sitting out there. How clear of a sky must the Judean hillside been twenty five hundred years ago?

And looking up at the night sky as he pondered the same thing I did. And here's what he says in Psalms eight. It says in verse one, O Lord our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth. Now that majestic comes from majesty, and it's a word we've thrown out, majesty.

You know, we'd but it it it we can't we don't even really get what that word means. It just means that it it means, like, epically beyond comprehension. And the next line tries to explain that when it says, Your glory is higher than the heavens.

And he says, You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you, and you can do anything. And here's where he gets it. Look at verse three, When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you set in place. So imagine him looking up at this

wonderful sky at night. He says this in verse four, what are mere mortals that you should think about them? Human beings that you should care for them. You see, he had this moment where he was struck with awe over what God had created. And in looking at just what he had created, it took him to this question. Wow. Who are we?

And by extension, who am I that you would even think about me and care about me? Now it's easy to think that that that gap, seeing that gap between God's majesty and who we are is a bad thing. Like, he's complaining. Like, he's Eeyore. Well, I guess I'm no one. But but the reality is he's he's actually

saying this in in in in reverse. He's in a conundrum. He can't understand. The reason he asked this question is he knows that God does think about him. That God does care about him. That God does think about us. That God does care about us, and that's what's confusing him. When he looked at this gap between who God is,

and who he is and who we are, he's like, why on earth would you even give a rip? And there in that gap is where you find the why and the what of worship. You see, if you don't see the gap, you don't see the need to worship God. See, worship also in its most basic thing, worth ship, it's ascribing worth to something.

So it's it's giving God his due, ascribing to who he is, his glories that fill the heaven. But if I don't see the gap of his majesty, and I start to bring him in closer to being like me, my worship is gonna be as big as the gap. Plain and simple. My worship is gonna be as powerful and meaningful

as the gap. Because the bigger the gap, the more blown away we are that he would give a rip about you. Because the Bible does say that God does care about us. He does think about us. He does want to know us. He he he and and yet look at all the things he created. And you know what? This was David looking at the sky twenty five years ago. We know the gap's even bigger. If you look at a night sky, that is pretty impressive. You see a meteor shower, that's pretty impressive. But we know more stuff about what's up there in that sky than he did.

We know that as you look at the night sky, every one of those is a a star. It's like a sun. It represents like our sun. But we now know that we live in a galaxy that's in a universe that's filled with potentially billions of galaxies. And just to get an idea, the Milky Way galaxy where we are,

it's five times longer than it is wide. But it's so let's say we just go, you know, I wanna go on a little dry. I'm gonna hop in the Millennium Falcon, and I'm gonna do the Kessel Run. I'm gonna try to go across the the skinny part of our galaxy. The short part. If you could go light speed, which by the way is 186,000

miles per second, or how some of you drive. The other half of you drive, you know, 186 sec feet per year, you know, basically. But if if you took 186,000 miles per second, and you you started cruising across this the narrow part of our galaxy, it would only take you twenty thousand years.

That's it. Just short little twenty thousand years. That night sky, there's billions of those galaxies. Our Sun, one of the biggest things we know about. You realize our Sun would fit 1,300,000 Earths in it? That's how big it is. Yet, compared to other stars, it's just considered an average to smaller sized star.

There's another star we've discovered just in our galaxy, one of billions, called Antares that is 700 times bigger than our Sun, and it shines 10,000 times brighter. Sun, So as we look at this guy, like think of David, he's like looking at what he saw, look what we know,

and God created that. And the God who created all of that complexity is the God that thinks about you and cares about you. So really when he asks, who am I? We're gonna learn today that that's really the answer to the question is, it has nothing to do with you. The real answer to that question is, who is God? Who is He?

That's what makes worship happen. What do I mean by that? If you want to turn to the right. Somebody clapping already? Sweet. You guys are gonna egg me on. Turn to the right to the book of Colossians near the end of the Bible,

and some of you can turn there. If you have a Bible, you can underline stuff. Some of you use a Bible app, that's okay. Just honestly be using the Bible app, don't be texting. This guy is so boring. The nice thing about having an actual Bible is when the global power grid goes down,

I'll still be able to read my Bible, and you won't, but that's okay. But if you get to the book of Colossians chapter one, what's happening is we're gonna see the answer to David's conundrum

of who are we? What's going on? And and Colossians is is a letter written to a church in Colossi, and that's why it's called Colossians.

And and it's really kind of starts off with the whole book is like, how do we really know God and get to to live out what we were made to be? In the first chapter, he goes, you get nowhere if you don't understand this thing first. The supremacy of who Jesus is. You

need to see the gap. You need to see what he did, and who he really is. And what we're gonna learn here is what worship is really about. What we're about to see, is I have to embrace with my whole life this big idea. That's the big idea for the whole series, but particularly today is this. I was made by God, for God.

I was made by God and for God. Now we're gonna unpackage that. Now some of you, like, you get the I was made by God part. Some of you don't. Some of you are new to church. You're like, I'm not even sure if I was made by God. That's okay. I'm glad you're here. Just keep coming. But a lot of us go, I know I was made by God.

But as we're gonna see, the struggle with you might be understanding and embracing that you were also made for God. That's the part that might be holding us up. So we're gonna see that here. So here we go. Starting in verse 15 in Colossians chapter one it says,

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. Right there I could do a whole sermon on that. Probably a whole series. He starts off by saying God Jesus is the God we can see.

He's the God that we could try to understand. You understand right there it declares the majesty of God. God is so far beyond our comprehension, we'll never understand all of them. And Jesus came. He was God in a bod. He took on the nature of a man. He is the God we can see and touch and try to understand God.

And and that's just the simplest, and so that's amazing. That shows that he cares. He wants us to know him. So so he does this. So he's the visible image of the invisible God. It says, he existed before anything was created, and he is supreme over all creation.

This was a false teaching in this day was to say Jesus was created. I just read an article that's a poll that said 78% of of evangelical of Bible believing Christians believe Jesus was created. Well, that means 78 of them have never read this verse. Jesus wasn't created. Jesus created.

He was the one that He he created everything. He existed before anything, and he created everything. It says, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. And here's the the verse that was the theme of our last

He made the things we can see and the things we can't see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything. And here it is. Here's the big idea. Everything was created through him and for him.

Everything was created through him and for him. In other words, we were made by Jesus for Jesus. Now, like I said, a lot of us in this room get the the by, made by. But do we embrace the made for? What do mean by that? To be made by God and for God means can I can I embrace both? Not just by, but also for. Think about this.

There was a controversy a few years ago. It's been kind of settled at least in regards to the military. They put out a ban against this, but I don't know if you're aware, a number of flags, especially the cheaper ones, US flags, are made in China, which is kind of weird. Because China stands politically,

and how they feel in their culture, very different than what The United States stands for. Yet they make a bunch of our flags. So you wave this flag that's supposed to be symbolized what we stand for, but it was made in a place that doesn't stand for any of that.

And what was weird is the military had a problem with they were procuring flags,

and they had an issue with, man, there's veterans getting buried, the flag that's placed over their coffin was made in China. And the Boy Scouts started putting out all the know, put out on the Memorial Day, all those flags. Boy Scouts had an issue with getting you know, they're gonna go get the cheap flags. And I never confirmed this, but they stopped doing this years ago. But but a number of years ago, every year my dad's buried up in the National Cemetery, fought in three wars.

One of them was against China. And I never looked, but my fear is it's very likely that a couple of those years

he had a flag waving. It's a beautiful sight to see all those flags over there honoring the veterans for what they stood for, and these flags supposed to represent. And I go, here's this flag waving in the wind, representing what he stood for, made in a country that doesn't stand for any of the stuff that's supposed to represent.

Now my dad would probably think that's funny, But the truth is, think of the dichotomy there. It's American flag, and then if you looked really close, made in China. Now but think about this.

How many of us, if we could go deep into our DNA and scan down close, who knows, maybe there's a little stamp that God put there that says, made by Jesus. But when the winds of time blows over our lives and our lives flaps out there in the breeze,

Is what our flag represents have anything to do with who made us? Or do we know we're made by God, but what we embrace in our life represents things other than Jesus? That's the problem with worship.

And here's one of the biggest mistakes we make when we our flag starts to represent something different than what we were made than who we were made by. Is sometimes we will take the biggest thing we will do that I see often, I I I'm tempted, I do this too,

is by by for some reason, one of the biggest lies we buy into is we add an o to God. So we say, I was made by God for good. Now don't hear what I'm not saying. God ultimately wants the greatest good for us.

But God knows what He's doing. Just because He wants the greatest good, we have a limited perspective. This is why you gotta know, mind the gap, as they say in England. Mind the gap, people. If there is this huge gap between the majesty of God and who we are, that means He has perspectives and knows things so far beyond our understanding and knowledge.

So the problem is some of the stuff that's happening in the moment doesn't feel good, doesn't look good, and to be honest, in that moment, is not very good.

So here's the problem. When I start to think I was made, I come to church, I celebrate, I praise Jesus, but in my heart I've only embraced I was made by God, but I've subtly added an oh to God and made it good. When that happens, I should say, oh no to that o.

Because here's what happened. When I say made for good, here's the problem. That becomes a very subjective term. And when I say it's for good, who becomes the arbiter and judge on what that means? I do. And then what happens when what's happening doesn't feel, according to my definition, good? What do I do?

If I think I'm made by God for good, and all of sudden it doesn't feel good, I only have two ways I can go with that. There's either something wrong with me, or there's something wrong with God. And that is the heart of what the Bible calls legalism.

It's this idea that I can be good enough to so God will give me the good things that I want, and if I'm gooder, it gets gooder. And then it's all the goodies for me because I'm gooder than the other goods, and I'm good, and that's good. So God says it's all good, and we're good. Good?

And that sounds stupid when you say it out loud, but be honest. Tell me that's really subtly how you think this whole Christianity church thing works. Some of you are here because you need to check off that gotta be good. And one of the checks is I gotta go worship God. So coming to church is you coming to worship God.

We do worship God here, But the first thing we do when we think we are made by God for good is we turn worship into an event instead of an all life kind of thing. Worship becomes something we do,

and that's why many of us think of worship as you come, and a lot of us think of worship as, oh no, here comes a series about singing. Worship is not just singing. Matter of fact, singing doesn't result in worship. Did you know that? Worship results in singing. Well that's it till we talk about that in a few weeks.

But think about it.

So I replace with the God of He's good, I become the arbiter. All of a sudden, what's that gap? I think I'm as smart as God. I'm right up in there. So when I think it's not right, I run away. And when the times when I think my life is the most wrecked, I choose to run from God when I should be running to Him.

I should be worshipping. I should embrace it.

Because I was made by God, and for God. I was made by Jesus, for Jesus. And we start throwing all kinds of stuff in there. You fill in the blank. Was I made by God for what? What right now do you think you were actually made for? And and and even though there's some really good things in there, they still will throw you off. Even if you agree you're made by God. Like my wife, Carrie, is the biggest blessing physically that God has given me on the into my life on this planet. But I know I was not made by God for Carrie.

I wasn't. You weren't made by God for your job. You weren't made by God for the things you get. You were not made by God for your sexuality.

That's one of the biggest confusions we have in our society right now. People think they were made by, and now we have people think they're made by their sexuality for their sexuality. And that's why so many people are depressed and messed up. Because all of those things will never pay off in the end. They won't give you what God built you to be, and it'll never answer the question that you really need answered. It's never gonna pay off the way you think it is.

And some of us are the most frustrated, depressed, trapped, pseudo kind of Christians, because you come to church over and over, and you do this song and dance, but in the end you go, I'm made by God, but for something else. It's never gonna work.

It's never gonna work. And that's why we struggle with what it means to worship God. Well then if I was supposed to go, okay, how do I embrace made by God for God? How do I embrace being made by Jesus for Jesus? Well let's read the next few verses. In verse 17 he says, talking about Jesus, He existed before anything else,

and He holds all creation together. Right there there's another whole sermon. What in your life do you think needs to happen to make your life hold together?

How many of you are single in this room that says, I have to have a spouse or my life won't hold together? By God, for what? How many think if I don't get this amount of finance, or if this doesn't happen, or if my kids don't do this, if this doesn't it's not gonna hold together. What does it say holds it all together?

Jesus.

And he says goes on, he goes verse 18, Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning. You realize that means church is about him, not us.

And then look what it says. If you didn't get it, he says, he's the beginning supreme over all who rise from the dead. And if you have your Bibles, underline this. So he is first in everything. Unless something's not going right, then I'll run away. Wait. No. He is first in everything.

Unless it's my kids, you know, baseball season. No. He is first in everything. Unless it's football season. Well, he can still stay first if the Cardinals are having such a bad year. Then I won't be as no. Is

you know what being first means? Being first.

What does everything mean? Everything. How I embrace and truly worship in my life is not just coming to church. The heart of worship is embracing with all of my life that I was made by Jesus, for Jesus. If I don't get that, it'll never make sense. I will have a really bipolar relationship in regards to the Lord.

Meaning when things are going good, you're gonna be on fire. When things start to make you struggle, you're gonna run away. It's gonna just be that's that's gonna be your entire walk. And the sad thing is we're supposed to be witnesses to God's glory. That's what worship is. We declare the glory of God.

And yet we're gonna look really weird to people that don't know the Lord

Because they're gonna say there is nothing different about them. There's nothing different. But our worship should lead us to that greater understanding of God's love. Right? Well then, how does that happen then? How do I put Him first in everything? How is this even possible? And now we're back to the gap.

Now we are the next few verses answers David's question is, who are we that you would think about us, God? Who are we that you would care about us? And and look what it says, verse 19.

For God in all of his fullness, in all of his majesty, in all of his greatness, in all of his glory, was pleased to live in Christ. And through him, through Jesus, God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth, how? By the means of Christ's blood on the cross.

You see, that's what I'm saying is when we say, who am I that you should care? When you see the gap, what that should drive us to. Seeing the majesty and greatness of God should show us our smallness, and the fact that we run from God. And then you see that in in that greatness,

it was his idea, his love, his plan, Jesus' sacrifice, Jesus' death, that brought us to him. Who are we? It doesn't matter who are we. That's the whole point. It's not about who we are, it's about who he is. That's the point.

And if I when I can get that, my worship stops being about me. I stop coming to church and say, like that song. I don't like song. I like that point. I like this guy preaching till he punched me in the throat. I like that guy. I still like him, but I he bagged on the Dodgers. Now I'm not gonna listen to him anymore. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter if you're a Dodger fan. Doesn't matter if you're a Seahawks fan. Jesus loves you.

He has to love you a little more. Sorry. Sorry.

He brought everything together. This includes listen to this verse 21. This includes you who were once far away from God. It's us. We were far away from God. He goes, you were his enemy, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now, if you have faith in Jesus, yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, here it goes, he has brought you in his own presence,

and you are holy and blameless. Did you catch that? If you know Jesus, God brought you to his presence. The God who built created billions of galaxies, who we are nobody in comparison to him, died for you and me to bring us into his presence. And not only did he do that to say, shame on you. It says,

we stand holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. Without a single fault. Now some of you have a personality that you think you already walked through life holy and blameless without a single fault. And all you have to do is ask you and you'll tell us. But the truth is we have tons of faults.

We were enemies of God. Why can we stand holy and blameless without a fault before Him? Because of Him. We're made by Jesus, for Jesus, through Jesus. So if you're new to church and you go, aren't all religions basically the same? Why do I need to know Jesus? What makes Jesus so special is because that's the only way.

If you ask the question, aren't religions all the same? You have a made by God for God, by God for good view. Because you think don't other ways teach you to be good? Don't other yeah. But the Bible says we stand in his presence only because of what he did.

It's not about who am I, it's about who he is. Now that sounds sad. Like, why do you just keep hitting mind the gap, mind the gap? Why do I have to look so down on myself? Because here's the point, is if I understand that this all happens by God's love, not by my strength,

I won't fail. If this happens by Him, when things get hard and confusing, I don't have to worry because I'm not the one that made it happen. That should bring confidence. If I know that Jesus looks at me, God the father looks at you, if you have faith in Jesus, and he sees you like he sees his son.

Wouldn't that make you want to boldly go stand before him? Especially if you knew you messed up? Wouldn't that make you be more declarative of your faith, of your love, if you understand? But see, when we try to bring God down to us, a lot of churches just like,

don't say the harsh thing. Don't call sin sin. Don't call people out. Don't say repent. Don't say we're far from God. Because we think it'll make people go, well, then I'll be more open to kinda seek God. The problem is what God are you seeking? If you see yourself as just a little less than God, the gap is nothing. Why do I need to worship that? I am almost that.

That's the lie of the of of hell. That's what Satan said. What did he do? He started to look at God. Do you realize Satan was a worship leader? And he looked at God and he started to say, why am I worshiping that? I wanna be that. I think I can. You guess what he forgot?

By God, for God. He forgot that he wasn't even remotely close to being in God's category. Not even close. And it's remembering that is where worship comes from. Because what does God fill that gap with? Himself and His love and His grace and His power for you and me. And that's what it means to be a Christian.

Now you can walk out of here and say I don't care I'll just keep working on myself. Good luck. Good luck. Or you can understand that you were made to worship something greater and you'll keep worshiping yourself or something else and you'll miss the point because look at this.

In Psalms, he says, Who am I that you would care? In Colossians, it says, I died on the cross to bring you in the presence and you are holy and blameless. It's who is he, not who am I. And that's what worship is. It's declaring who he is because that's what we were made to do. Our brokenness of a life being redeemed by Jesus

declares, shouts through the billions of galaxies out there the majestic name of God. That's what we were made to do. So we don't have to run with our shame and our guilt away from God until we clean it up. We run to Him because He died to clean it up. If I don't embrace that, my life will never embrace worship.

What are you embracing?

What are you struggling to trust Jesus first in? Because guess what? That thing you're wrestling with trusting Jesus in, making him first in your life, whether it be your time, your talent, your money, your family, your job, whatever it is. That

is the holy ground you need to worship on right now. Not come here and sing songs.

Your worship is choosing to make Jesus first in that. That's what we are made to do. And look what it says at the end. It says, we are made blameless, but there is something he asks us to do. He says in verse 23, you must continue to believe this truth,

and stand firmly in it. Continue to believe it, and then we go, okay I believe it, and that's what a lot of do. We come to church, check off belief. I have this list of belief. Jesus did, but then he says stand firmly in it. You realize that's what we're gonna talk about for the next few weeks?

What has God provided for us through his word and asked us to say, here's what you need to do to stand firmly in this. Standing firmly in this is our acts of worship,

our continued moments, and it's not just about singing. One week we're gonna talk about public acts of worship. Why do we come here together and worship together? What is that? How does this help us stand firm? Next week, we're talking about the private acts of worship. What do we do out there? And we're gonna find out this is why you read your Bible. This is why you pray. This is why it's an act of worship that helps you stand firm in the belief that God made you blameless and holy before him, because he died for you, and I can live for him. I don't have to run from him. I don't have to work on it myself. I can lean into his power. You don't read the Bible because God's gonna be mad if you don't, because he's an author that's really, you know, temperamental. That if you don't read his book, then if you don't pray, we make it a ought to instead of a get to.

And we're gonna unpackage these really practical ways of what God's provided for us to stand firm on our own and together.

But in the end it goes back to this, we were made to worship, and we got to understand this gap. To think about it, was David looked up at that night sky, as I looked up at that night sky, as we look at these billions of galaxies. What he's saying here is Jesus created it all. He's alluding back to Genesis one, where it says God spoke into nothing and created.

That's how big God is. He created billions of galaxies. And not only did he do that, he created us. And he came into this world, but he created a man named Abraham. And he came to him, and he says, hey, you know what? I'm gonna help fix the problem that you've created. And he and he protected him, he guided him.

This is the same God that created billions of galaxies came in, and and he led the people of God Israel at time by a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. That sounds weird and impossible, but if you realize he created billions of galaxies, that's no big deal.

It's the same God that when that that that people of God got pinned between an army and an ocean, and it looked totally hopeless. It didn't look good. He showed up and divided an ocean for them so they can walk across. Now that sounds ridiculous.

Unless you understand, he's the God that created it all. It's not that big of a deal. He's the same God. Yeah. Keep going. Egg me on. Preach it, brother. He's the same God.

Who when a man named Jonah tried to run from him, he swallowed him with a giant fish. Some of you don't even like to eat fish. Now imagine getting eaten by a fish. That doesn't sound good, but he has a bigger perspective. He protected them supernaturally and vomited them up onto dry land so he can run back into the glory of God.

It's the same God who protected a guy named Daniel when because of his faith was thrown into a lion's den, and he supernaturally protected them. And then later on protected his friends, Rack, Shack, and Benny, who got thrown into a fiery furnace for the same faith. And he supernaturally

protected him, because that's who God is. That's the big God we worship. That's the God we love. And he's the same God that came to a virgin teenage girl named Mary and says, I am gonna produce my son. God the son was born,

and that's the real reason he did all this. He came into this world. He taught. He said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. He healed people. He fed people. He gave hope to people. But most importantly, He is the God that picked up a cross and went onto it, and died for you and for me, despite that huge gap.

And that is the point of why we worship. How can you not get excited about that? Unless you don't see it. Unless you don't see it. So if you're new, that's what separates Christianity from everything else. Is we worship the God of the gap, who despite that huge gap died for you. Everything else is the God of the cleanup.

God of the tune up. God of I've got it okay. I just need to get a little bit better. But this is the God that came into a very broken world where synagogues get shot up, schools get terrorized, marriages fall apart, addictions destroy people.

And he says, I got this. That is what we were made to worship. And if I forget it, I can get so distracted. There's a story about a man named Job in the Bible. The book is called Job. It's right in the middle somewhere. You might, if you're new, think it says Job, but it's Job.

And and and and his story is a story of a man who was faithful. He loved God. He he served God, and then his life got wrecked. And God allowed it. You see, Satan came and accused

God of saying, you know what? The only reason this guy Job follows you is because he knows he was made by you, but he feels like he was made for good. And he does the good things, and he follows you because you give him so much nice stuff. So God says, alright, do what you want, just don't kill him.

And he lets him just tear this guy's life apart, which is, see, if you believe you're made by God for good, just saying that freaks you out. How could God do it? But you realize what God's gonna do for Job is not a throat punch, it's a hug in the form of a throat punch. Because Job stays faithful.

And guess what? His friends come to him, and they have the remember when I said if it's by God for good, you have one of two choices. Something wrong with God or something wrong with you. He has friends that say, there must be something wrong with you. And he goes, that's not it. That's not it. His wife comes to him

and and says, there's something wrong with God. You should just curse God and die. Thanks honey. And of all the people he took out of his life, he left that wife alive. That's Satan smart. You know, he was like he's like letting her like just try to discourage him. And he stays faithful.

But along the way he develops one little attitude. He starts to forget the fore God. And he starts to go down I'll be quite honest, I'd go down this road. I think all of us naturally want to go down this road, and some of you, you're down this road right now. Everything I said you have a problem with.

Because you're thinking like Job. He said, okay. I will not curse God. I will stay faithful to God. But God owes me some answers.

God owes me. If God would just answer give me the answers as to why this is happening, I'll be okay. I'm not gonna desert him. I'm not gonna ban him. But you know what? I'm getting frustrated because he owes me answers.

Is that where you're at right now? Some of you have a hard time worshiping God, letting go, surrendering, trusting in the Lord, because you are going through something where your life seems wrecked right now, and you think if God would just give you the answers. Here's the problem with that. You are not minding the gap.

If he's the God of the gap that's so much beyond us, how do you think him giving you an answers? Here's exactly why this happened. You know what that's gonna do if he just told you answers? You know what that would do? It'd be like the show Lost.

Remember how they had so many unanswered? It got to the point where I I don't even want them to answer anything. Because every time they give you an answer, they give you the answer in form of 50 more new questions that you don't have the answer to. So every new answer created more questions. Think about God of the gap. Think about how

arrogant we are that they we think if God could tell us this is exactly why I let this happen at this moment. Oh, yeah. I get it now, God. I get it. We can't even we could never even figure out the whole time we had VCRs how to program the flashing 12.

And I'm gonna understand when God says this is why this happened, when he is in eternity amount of decisions ahead of us,

he already knows where everything's ending. If he just gave you that answer you wanted, you would have a thousand new questions. That's what Minding the Gap is. But you know what he gave Job? Something better. He didn't give him any answers. He gave him the answer. Period. And the answer was he revealed himself to Job.

And he came to him. You know this is gonna be a tough conversation. When how he started off it was a hug in the form of a throat punch. He said, who is this is asking stupid questions and they don't know what they're talking about? That's how the conversation began. And then he presents, he says, Job needs to see the gap

so he'll trust.

And there is chapter after chapter of God saying, let me ask you some questions. Were you there when I did this? Were you there when I created that? Were you there when I divided the seas? Were you there when I did this? Were you there when I threw the stars up? Were you there when this happened? When that happened? The other thing happened? The other thing? And after seeing that,

this is how Job responded at the end of the book of Job.

Chapter 42 says this, Then Job replied to the Lord, I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. See instead of getting answers, he got the answer. I can trust you. He says, you asked who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?

It is I. And I was talking about things I knew nothing about. Things far too wonderful me. Too wonderful for me. He goes, I didn't get it. You said listen and I will speak. I have some questions for you and you must answer them. Verse five is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. If we would just get this.

He says, I had only heard about you before, but now I've seen you with my own eyes.

When you have I was made by God for good mentality, your worship becomes about you. And then when life seems to be wrecked, we run. And what Job said he realized is, if I was willing to look, I'd heard about you, but in this most wrecked portion of my life is when I saw you.

Some of you are in a moment in your life where you can see God clearer than any other time. If you could just embrace that you were made by Him and for Him. Because you know what that caused him to do? Verse six, I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.

Turning to God is when you see that He's God and you're not. That's the bottom line. That's what worship is about. It's to see that He's God and you're not. And that we're not even close. And that comes when I embrace I was made by Jesus, for Jesus, through Jesus. So I want us to close out. Sean's gonna sing a song.

And I want us to have a moment where you can reflect. And maybe have a moment where God wants to ask you some questions. And it might be the hug in the form of a throat punch. And this words from this song come right out of these chapters of Job where God questions Job.

Just maybe have a moment where you can hear from God too.

I say, god, I do not understand this world. Everything is dying and broken. And why do I see nothing but in

the not say anything else to?

He said, where were you

and

the

silos for the times of trouble and war and strife. Can

you raise your voice to the storm clouds. And

to

God wants to answer us, but not with answers, but with the answer, himself. Worship is minding that gap. And it's embracing with all my life the idea that I was made by Jesus, for Jesus, through Jesus. Amen? Father God, I thank you for that truth today. I thank you for the truth from your word.

I thank you for the supremacy of who you are. And Lord, as Job said, any time that I've gotten off track, I take it back. And I sit in repentance. And Lord, may I always see your majesty in my life. Lord, as the Bible says, the fear of you is the beginning of all wisdom. And that's what it means to fear you.

To not tremble in terror, but to sit before and shake in awe. So, Lord, I pray for myself and everyone in this room that that would be what our life embraces. That we would embrace that with all of who we are. Because that's what you made us for. We were made to worship.

I just pray this in the mighty and holy name of Jesus. Amen.