Scriptures and Key Points:
- We use worship as a form of warfare, because worship to God turns back darkness around us.
Psalm 119:97-105 NKJV Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation…understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word…have not departed from Your judgments, for You Yourself have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Hebrews 4:12 NKJV For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
- Now the written word is one thing, but it doesn’t have any power without the Holy Spirit giving breath and revelation to the Living Word.
- Jesus is the Living Word.
- There is no authority without having relationship with the Living Word Himself.
There’s something powerful about lifting up the Word.
Nehemiah 8 NKJV Ezra Reads and Explains the Law
- The first day of Tishrei would be the beginning of Rosh Hashanah in the Hebrew calendar.
- Also, it’s the beginning of the next phase, the beginning of the new year.
- The first time the word worship is ever mentioned in Scripture is in the context of obedience to God.
Genesis 22:1-19 NKJV …I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”…
Romans 12:1 NKJV 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 the living worshippers who are bringing our act of worship through our time, talent, resources, and our obedience to God.
1 Corinthians 6:19 NKJV 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?
- Discouragement is a powerful drug. It keeps us away from the fullness of what God wants for us.
Isaiah 55:11 NKJV So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
- When we get back in His Word, and the Word begins to do a work in us, and we get back in that place of authentic worship, things begin to change.
Psalm 20:7 NIV Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Joshua 24:15 NKJV …But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
When the Word of God, the truth, is going forth, the truth shall set people free.
John 1:1 NKJV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Colossians 1:16 NKJV For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
- What God did in the midst of difficulty, He can do even greater today.
2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
- It’s up to us to declare the word over the nation. Not those who don’t believe now.
John 12:32 NKJV And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.
Luke 8:11 NKJV …The seed is the word of God.
Romans 10:17 NKJV So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
“Tears are like liquid prayers.” – Charles Spurgeon
Psalm 34:17 NKJV The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.
“A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” -Charles Spurgeon
- “I’ve never arrived until I have arrived before His presence, and He says, ‘Welcome in thy good and faithful servant.’” (Matthew 25:21 NKJV)
Proverbs 30:5 NKJV Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.
Acts 4:13 NKJV Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
- We can’t change our past, but the decisions we make every day determine our future.
- You’ve got to be who God’s called you to be.
- We cannot truly know God’s heart apart from His Word, and we cannot effectively carry His message if we’re not rooted in it ourselves.
Romans 12:2 NKJV And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…
Psalm 32:8 NKJV I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go…
- The same word that spoke creation into existence is still speaking today.
Psalm 33:6 NKJV By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
- We need Jesus, because in Jesus’ presence, all of our divisions are gone.
Isaiah 6:5 NKJV …“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips…
2 Chronicles 5 NKJV …And it came to pass when the priests came out of the Most Holy Place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without keeping to their divisions)…
- When you get in the presence corporately of a Holy God, it equalizes us.
- And we all realize we’re nothing without Him.
The Word of God lights a fire in us and is carried through us.
- We get to be part of something far bigger than ourselves.
Jeremiah 23:29 NKJV “Is not My word like a fire?” says the Lord…
- The corporate attack against the church needs a corporate response of worship in the Word.
2 Samuel 5:24 NKJV And it shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall advance quickly. For then the Lord will go out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.”
Hebrews 12:2 NKJV Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…
James 1:22 NKJV But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
- At the same time, we have to go from hearing to responding.
- What will we do with what we heard?
- We need people who don’t just gather in worship to pacify their soul, but people who are changed of heart and spirit and renewed of mind.
- People in Nehemiah’s day did more than listen, they responded. They allowed the word to confront them and convict them and ultimately realigned them with God.
- The purpose of the Word is not for condemnation; It is for restoration.
- The goal is never simply to proclaim the Word of God. It is to transform us, and see transformation through us as the kingdom of God is advanced.
- Let us not admire the Word only, but let’s obey His Word.
- Remember simple obedience is the highest form of worship.
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