Why Should We Worship Jesus? Part Three

Why Should We Worship Jesus?  Part 3

Example of False Worship

According to the first two commandments there is only one God, and that God alone is to be worshipped (Exodus 20:1-10).  Martin Luther once said that we break the rest of the commandments only after we have broken the first two.  I believe that what he meant is that if the one true God is my only God, and I worship only that God, then I will not end up committing idolatry by worshipping my job (and not taking a Sabbath), worshipping my anger (and becoming violent), worshipping sex (and committing adultery), or worshipping success (and coveting what other people have).

The opposite of worship is idolatry, or the worshipping of something or someone other than the one true God of the Bible alone.  In fact the theme of worship versus idolatry is in some ways the theme of the entire Old Testament.  Before I touch on some examples of false worship, here are some questions we may ask ourselves to understand if we have idols in our lives:

• Who or what do I make sacrifices for?
• Who or what is most important to me?
• If I could have any thing or experience I wanted, what would that be?
• Who or what makes me the most happy?
• What is the one person or thing I could not live without?
• Who or what do I devote my spare time to?

Our human hearts are idol factories for anything and everything: political causes, hobbies, recreation, sports, etc.  This is so because since God created us to worship Him, we will always have a desire to worship.  And if we choose not to fill this innate desire with God we will instead fill it with worldly desires as mentioned above.  Okay - on to some examples of false worship.

Some men worship automobiles and houses and spend all of their time and money to renovate them while neglecting time with God and the people He has called them to love, such as their wife and children.  Some women worship their beauty and spend so much of their time, energy and money on their looks that they are prone to neglect God and others such as their husband, children, and friends.  Others are prone to worship their favorite band and even spend hours every day online gathering the latest news, downloading the latest songs, tuning in to the latest interviews, buying the latest merchandise, and even traveling around the country and world to catch the latest concert.

Do you worship modern technology?  Smart phones have revolutionized the world during the past five years and millions of people all over the world - actually hundreds of millions now - are so consumed with emails, text messaging, and social media websites that they no longer can find time to read their Bibles fifteen minutes a day or pray daily.  Are you more worried about what happens daily with those on your "friends" list than you worry about your interaction today with God?  It may be time to log off and plug in to the Creator.

Finally, do you participate in our culture's worship of naked crazy-making?  In Paul's day, he accused some people of worshipping their stomachs as their god, and in our day it appears that our god has simply moved a short distance south.  Americans alone spend more money each year on pornography than country music, rock music, jazz music, Broadway plays, and ballet combined.  We spend more money on pornography than we do on professional baseball, basketball, and football combined!  Clearly, perversion is a major American pastime and a ten-billion-dollar business.

The annual rentals and sales of adult videos now top four billion dollars annually.  Eleven thousand porno movies are made every year, twenty times the number of mainstream movies made by Hollywood!  The porn industry now claims over 30 percent of all video rentals in America.  Nationally there are over 3,000 strip clubs. On the Internet, the top word searched is "sex", with "porn", "nude", "Playboy", and "erotic stories" also in the top twenty.  Seventy percent of porn traffic occurs between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. while people are sitting at work unable to focus on their job because the god of Eros continually beckons.  The top research priority in the pornography business is getting good quality porn to a cell phone or mobile device so that everyone can feed any twisted desire anytime and anywhere.

By their graduation date, students will have watched fifteen thousand hours of television, compared to only twelve thousand hours in the classroom.  While watching television, they will see fourteen thousand sexual references every year, with only 165 of those occasions mentioning birth control, self-control, abstinence, or mentioning anything about the risk of pregnancy or STDs.  Undeniably, people are worshipers and will worship someone or something.  Thankfully, Jesus came to enable us to worship the Creator instead of the creation.

Stay tuned for Part 4 !!