Why Did You Come To Church Today?
by Pastor Paul Klusewicz
June 27, 2008

John 4:23-24 “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

Isaiah 6:1-8 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

The Lord is looking for true worshippers. Those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. There were many other choices you could have made for this Sunday. You could have gone to a baseball game, the beach, a mall, done chores, or even stayed home and rested. Even pastors get confused and frustrated at times and need a great deal of patience with the flock. It is very important to fix our eyes on Jesus and always allow Him and the power of the Holy Spirit to be our guide.

So ask yourself some questions; Are we here out of habit? Not necessarily a bad thing, but a reminder that we can do this for many years and still not have a real experience of Jesus Christ. Do we come to church and concern ourselves more about external things such as what people wear or what type of songs we sing or what color are the walls, the rugs or the curtains?

Let us be clear; we should come to church to be in the presence of the one true, holy and awesome God; to worship God in all His fullness; to assemble together as a body of believers.

To minister to others and to let others minister to us. To be filled by the Holy Spirit and let God be God.

Many of us have trials and tribulations in our lives and it’s difficult to find the Lord. There is a strong temptation to stay away from church and avoid God and our fellow believers. But where can you run from the love of God? And though its always important to come to church, how much more important when the darkness of life hits. We need to come and spiritually seek the Lord. It’s not about what we get from the Lord, it’s about what we give to the Lord. And again I can say, it’s about diving deep into the Lord’s presence. The Lord is “seated on the throne high and exalted.” Jesus is Lord of all! One day “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

In true worship we need a real sense of the Lord’s presence; we need to know that God’s presence is real; we need to let ourselves go and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 40:31 (KJV) “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

So, are you flying with the eagles or walking with the turkeys? We serve, submit and are obedient to a Holy God. The Lord is not capricious. He is constant, giving, loving and ever present in our lives. The more we worship, the more we also realize our own sinfulness and our need to repent. We will realize that frequently we are people of “unclean lips” and we are continually in the process of sanctification. As we walk deeper in faith with the Lord we realize that the only one we can fix before the Lord is ourselves; we should not spend our time trying to fix others nor should we continue to point a finger at others. Just remember when we are pointing one finger out, four are pointing back at ourselves. The Lord is the one to clean us up!

Confess you messed up and allow God’s grace to work in you. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Our guilt is washed away and our sins are one hundred percent forgiven. We have been atoned for; we have been reconciled to the Lord and we can and should get excited for the Lord. When we are weak, God is strong; when we are tempted God gives us the strength to hold fast to Him, to journey through the valleys and to be delivered, to be set free and receive those “hinds feet for the high places.” Habakkuk 3:19 (KJV) “The LORD God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places.” He forgives us absolutely and completely. As we realize God’s forgiving power, we then extend this forgiveness to others-“seventy times seven.” We are free to worship; we are free to serve; we are free to say to the Lord “Here I am, send me.” God is calling us into the deepest possible relationship we can have with Him; God is calling us to serve Him this hour, this day, this week. Listen to the Lord and go forth and serve Him.