Embracing Diversity: Worshiping God in Spirit and Truth

Thus saith God the Lord, He that created the heavens and stretched them out, He that spread forth the earth and that which cometh out of it, He that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand and will keep thee. I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to obey the Lord. And I will give thee for a covenant of the people, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness, and out of the prison house. I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. [00:18:16]

Verse number 5, he talks about how he's created us and filled us with his Spirit. Moving along into verses 6 and 7, he's talking about Jesus. Talking about Jesus opening the blinded eyes and setting the prisoners free. If you've been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, that's you this morning. You no longer have to walk in darkness. You're no longer blinded to sin. You've seen the light of the truth of the gospel. [00:19:26]

And you're no longer bound by chains of sin. You are set free. You're no longer a prisoner to all that. And that's one of the reasons we worship him this morning. One of the many reasons we worship him. [00:20:05]

Now, we don't worship man-made statues that sit on our mantles anymore like they did back then, hopefully. But I believe the idols and the things that are worshipped other than God have kind of evolved. And the enemy's gotten more sly in his approach as well to where we're worshipping things like our hobbies, our vacations, our families, our kids, our kids' hobbies, our spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, video games, friends, you fill in the blank, you name it. Anything that takes up your time more than God. You could very well be an idol in your life that you're worshipping. [00:20:10]

In verses 9 and 10, he says that he's doing a new thing. So he wants us to sing a new song. And all of our worship should go to him and not any of those other things. So he's doing a new thing. And he wants us to sing a new song as he expands our borders through worship. So let's all stand and sing a new song to him this morning. [00:20:53]

First point is it should be diverse. Diverse or it will be diverse. Look around the room. This is a good excuse for you just to check out the rest of the crowd and see what somebody's wearing or what they look like. Just look around the room. You can do this. We're all different. [00:26:35]

We don't all like the same stuff. We have different things that we do during the week, different things that we enjoy. We listen to different types of music. We don't all like the same songs when we come into church. Some of y'all didn't like that song right now. We just sang. We don't all like the same singers. By the way. [00:27:07]

We serve a creative God. It was highlighted there in chapter 42, that first verse we read out of 42, verse number 5. And he says it again in chapter 43. He says, But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by name. Thou art mine. He has created us. He's redeemed us. [00:28:26]

We do a wonderful job reaching multiple generations, different age groups. We do a wonderful job there. But there are nations and races represented in our region, in our community, that aren't here. Look around the room. You can do it again. [00:30:26]

We actually don't look all that different. But if you walk around Walmart, or other places, or other parts of town, other parts of the community, it might look a little more diverse, a little more, you might see more diversity in God's creation. And it's my prayer that we'll see more of that here. [00:30:43]

And as that happens, that we'll be welcoming to people that are different than us. The diversity in how we worship will expand the more diverse people worship with us. [00:31:45]

We often equate worship and praise with music, but they're not the same thing. You can worship and praise God without singing that worship or that praise. You can worship him all kinds of ways. [00:37:33]