Ezekiel 44:17,18,21                 Worshipping the Lord

I. Inspiration rather than perspiration.
        A. Perspiration speaks of expended energy of the flesh.
                1. Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, "God is a Spirit
                   and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit
                   and in truth."
                2. There are times when we might be doing a service for
                   the Lord that will create sweat.
                        a. In the building of these facilities that we
                           might have a place to come and worship the
                           Lord we put in a lot of sweat.
                        b. We read of Jesus in the garden as He was
                           agonizing in prayer, that His sweat was as
                           were great drops of blood falling down to
                           the ground.
                        c. After sin entered the world the curse upon
                           man was that he was to earn his bread by the
                           sweat of his brow.
                        d. When the children of Israel were in the hot
                           wilderness and the cloud would begin to move
                           signaling that it was time to break camp, the
                           Tabernacle had to be dismantled and carried
                           to the new location. I imagine that in that
                           desert heat, there was a lot of perspiration.
                3. But when it came to worshipping God, He desired that
                   the worship flow freely from an overflowing heart.
        B. The Lord does not want you to feel that serving Him is a heavy
           burden that He lays on you.
                1. Some speak of the great sacrifices that they have made
                   to serve the Lord.
                        a. They speak of the things that they gave up to
                           follow Christ.
                        b. I do not find that in the New Testament in
                           those who chose to follow Jesus.
                        c. The closest thing that comes to a reference to
                           the past life that was deserted to follow Jesus
                           was made by Paul, as he wrote of his former
                           life of a Pharisee and his endeavor to please
                           God through the keeping of the law. He said,
                           and those things that were gain to me I counted
                           loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
                           Jesus Christ, for whom I suffered the loss of
                           all things and do count them as dung, that I
                           may know Him and be found in Him.
                        d. It is like some poor street person becoming the
                           big winner in the lottery, and going out and
                           buying a bay front home in Newport Beach, and a
                           new Mercedes car, and when you come to
                           interview them about their new life, they
                           spend the whole time telling you how they had
                           to give up their life on the streets, their
                           special mattress under the bridge where slept
                           at night and they had to sacrifice their
                           shopping cart loaded with all of their
                           possessions to live this new style of life.
                        e. In coming to Jesus, you give up a lot of
                           junk that is destroying your life, and in turn,
                           you become a child of God and if a child then
                           a heir of God. You are never required by God
                           to give up one worthwhile thing to follow
                           Jesus Christ.
                2. In the days of Jeremiah, there were false prophets
                   that were going around always saying the burden of the
                   Lord, the burden of the Lord. The Lord warned Jeremiah
                   about using that phrase, He said that He was tired of
                   hearing them say the burden of the Lord when He had
                   not put any burden on them.
                3. Some people speak of the heavy burden that God has
                   laid on them, as though they were about to be crushed
                   by the enormity of the things that they were doing for
                   God. Jesus said, "My yoke is easy and My burden is
                   light."
                4. God does not want my service to Him to be done in a
                   grudging or complaining way.
                        a. Paul in talking about our giving to God
                           declared that it should never be done
                           grudgingly or out of necessity for God loves
                           a cheerful giver.
                        b. I believe that this refers to giving myself
                           in a service for the Lord as well as the
                           giving of my money.
                        c. Sometimes people have volunteered to do
                           something for me and then I hear from others
                           how they were griping about how much time
                           it took them, or of some inconvenience that
                           they experienced, and I go to them and
                           say, just forget it, I do not want you to do
                           it.
                        d. We had a fellow volunteer to do some work
                           for the Lord
                           just anything, he wanted to just serve the
                           Lord, then we heard from others how much he
                           was complaining about all that he was doing
                           without getting any reimbursement.
                           We finally figured out approximately how
                           many hours he put in and paid him just to
                           shut up his griping mouth.
                        e. I wonder just how God must feel when we start
                           complaining about what He has asked us to do
                           for Him?
                        f. The attitude in which I do a thing is far
                           more important than the thing that I do.
                           God loves a cheerful giver.

II. There was not to be any service to the Lord done under a false
    stimulant.
        A. They were told that they were not to drink wine when they
           entered the inner court.
                1. Back in Leviticus  we read that when the Tabernacle
                   was all prepared, and they began the worship of the
                   Lord, that as Moses and Aaron came out of the
                   Tabernacle, that the glory of the Lord was
                   manifested before the people as the fire came from
                   the Lord and consumed the sacrifice that was on the
                   altar. A the people were rejoicing over this
                   manifestation of the presence of God the two sons
                   of Aaron, Nathan and Abihu took strange fire in
                   their censers and rushed in to offer the strange
                   fire unto the Lord, and that the fire came from
                   the Lord and consumed them.
                        a. In context with this event the Lord spoke
                           to Aaron and told him not to drink wine or
                           strong drink neither he nor his sons, when
                           they went into the Tabernacle, lest they die.
                        b. It would appear that God does not want
                           anything offered to Him under a false
                           stimulant.
                2. I see how much strange fire is being offered to the
                   Lord today.
                3. There are many who under the pretense of serving
                   the Lord are ripping off the saints of God. They are
                   not motivated by the love of Jesus Christ, but by
                   their own greed.
                4. Jesus warned His disciples to take heed that they
                   did not their righteousness before men with the
                   motive of being seen by man. If this were the case,
                   the applause of man would be all of the reward that
                   they would ever receive for their service.
                   He encouraged them to be secret service agents.
                   Go into your closet to pray, and your Father that
                   seeth in the secret places will reward you.
        B. I have repented before God for my endeavor in the early
           years of my ministry to seek to motivate people to serve
           the Lord under false stimulation.
                1. We used to have contests with rewards for the
                   person bringing the most people to church over a
                   given period of time.
                2. We used to pit the men against the women, and the
                   reds against the blues to stir up their carnal
                   competitive zeal to bring the most to Sunday School.
        C. God does not any you to feel pressured to worship Him, He does
           not want you to be whipped up into an emotional frenzy to
           praise Him. He desires that your praise and worship flow from
           a heart overflowing with love for Him because of His
           manifested love toward us. No sweat, no false stimulant, just
           a pure natural outflowing of expressions of thanksgiving and
           love. In the psalms we are told to serve the Lord with
           gladness, and be thankful unto Him.