"Restless" Don't Trip

Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 “Don’t Trip”

Two issues…
1. Corporate worship
Coming to church is not paying your dues, you come to grow, and learn more about…

2. Life worship Out of the same mouth come cursing and blessing??

Verses 1-3 Cororate worship

1. Listen

Vrs 1
That we may not bring the sacrifice of fools, we must come to God’s house with hearts disposed to know and do our duty. We must be ready to hear, that is,

I read an article by JR Vasser , Pastor of Apostles Church in NYC: what to judge the preacher on.
1. Text sourced : From the Bible and in context
2. Christ exalting: Is Jesus the hero?
3. Gospel Centered: Can someone get saved listening
4. Audience focused: know the people in which you preach.
John Stange Mind, heart, hands

We must diligently attend to the word of God read and preached

More commonly we judge on was it funny, was it touching, did it make me cry, was it a new perspective

Someone visits a church and says the message was awesome, “great what was it about”

In a church much hinges on what is preached from the pulpit and this is convicting to me
George Whitefield the Great preacher that was a huge catalyst for the Great Awakening in 1700’s
“the reason why the congregations are so dead, is because dead men preach to them”

2. Offer

Music: We sing..you will not like every song
Give
Serve

Vrs 2 God is righteous and you are sinful (contrast of heaven and earth) we know as believers God is with us. He is not far off and uninvolved.

We are not even worthy to come and worship God with singing, but God allows us to.

We must be very cautious and considerate in all our approaches and addresses to God (Hey God) When Jesus says Abba like daddy it is a personalized term of endearment.

We do have a personal relationship with Jesus, and the fact that He is Jesus should demand that you speak to Him with respect.

The words of our mouths must always be the product of the meditation of our hearts.

“It is not enough that what we say comes from the heart, but it must come from a composed heart, and not from a sudden heat or passion” Matthew Henry

We see this all the time someone gets excited about the Lord, so they commit to everything and within days or weeks they drop the ball.

Let our words be few, that they may be well chosen, Job 9:14.

3. Reverance (casual but reverent vibe) Composure in Worship

Vrs 3 As confused dreams, frightful and perplexed, and such as disturb the sleep, are an evidence of a hurry of business which fills our head, so many words and hasty ones, are an evidence of folly reigning in the heart, ignorance of and unacquaintedness with both God and ourselves, low thoughts of God, and careless thoughts of our own souls.

The idea carried here is that you should be thinking about your composure, not hurried and mind all over the place.

What inspires reverence?

1. Look to the Cross GOSPEL
2. Look to the future Kingdom Hebrews 12
.
You come to worship service to know the Lord better, and be encouraged to do good.

If you “trip” in Corporate worship, you will “trip” in life worship

“Man cannot know himself without knowing God” John Calvin in the opening pages in The Institutes.
How can you know how to act if you don’t know Jesus

Here is what happens...you are created to worship and the corporate worship shows you how to in life. The worship service is designed to point you to Christ and without That the weekly reminder you can get off focus and start worshipping other things which will be sin and cause you sin.
Then what happens is your life worship becomes non-existence.


Life Worship: How do we worship with our life?
1. Follow Through
Vrs 4 Vows Deut 23:21 & Matt 5:37
The problem with vows is that it can lead us to a works based salvation ideology

Side note: Don’t barter with God, we have a God of love and justice, we don’t dangle a carrot stick in his face and say if you do this I will do that. Remember He is righteous and we are unrighteous…God is not pleased when we do something for Him only in view of what we can get out of Him.

That is almost like a smack in His face because everything you have is by His grace and you don’t deserve it anyway.

Many times when people rush into things they also rush out of things

2. Less is more
Vrs 5 Only take on what you can handle , sometimes people just want to please and others and they agree to more then they can handle.

I want to help, but instead of helping you hurt your testimony and maybe your family.

3. Act rather then speak: Talk is cheap Don’t make promises to people that you can’t keep it will damage your testimony for Christ and ruin your Life Worship
Vrs 6

4. Humble yourself
Vrs 7 At that time it was common for people to claim to know God through dreams. Last week we talked about being teachable. We will never arrive.

Some people sit around and dream all day, what could be done or what should be done but they never get anything done.

Be humble… you don’t know everything (people know everything)

5. Fear God: The end of the matter is in Corporate Worship and Life Worship we should do all things for the Glory of Jesus