Check Your Vital Signs

Worship is a vital part of our walk with God.

It ought to be easy to worship him when we are in good spiritual health.

When you get the flu, you don’t feel like talking, walking, working…. …..nothing ……when you are sick.

Spiritually speaking…when you are healthy, it’s easy to walk with the Lord.

It’s easy to talk to him and work for him when we are in tune with God but if we get sick spiritually, then worship is one of the first things that we don’t feel like doing.

When we stop expressing our worship, it’s the running nose of an on coming spiritual cold. It’s a sign of something wrong going on inside!

Rom. 8:26-28

Rom 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Rom 8:27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

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I want to preach on “Check Your Vital Signs“

I checked with Registered Nurse Cottrill and asked her when a nurse checks out yourvital signs, just what are they? She said they are 3 things!

Pulse or heart rate, breath, blood pressure!

If any of those 3 isn’t normal…then someone is in big trouble.

On my phone I have a couple of apps. One checks my blood pressure and one checks my level of stress……on my phone!

Your vital signs are good indicators what’s going on inside your physical body.

Well, worship is a healthy response to a healthy relationship with the Lord.

If someone isn’t worshipping, it’s a good indicator something is wrong in their spirit.

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There are literally thousands of books written on worship, explaining it and analyzing it but the bottom line: Worship is a lot like “love in a marriage”.

-The more you express it, the better you get at it.

I can read many, many books about how to love my wife but what good is just reading about it? It takes action to get a good response.

What good does just reading about worship, if we don’t do it, practice it?

We Pentecostals are supposed to be the experts on Worship.

How are you doing in your love life with the Lord?

Once again…worship is a good vital sign of what’s going on in your spirit.

It ought to be easy to worship God when you are spiritually where you ought to be. (does that make sense?)

Worship is an outpouring of an inner emotion.

When God is #1 in your life; when he is the most important, then one of the first things youcan’t help but to do is….worship him!

Just open up your mouth and lift up your hands and let it flow out from your mouth to his ears. It’s not difficult to express yourself when you are in love.

Rom. 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

We can all easily tell God what is wrong with us physically with words if we have to. (don’t feel good, my foot hurts, I have a head ache, I’m sleepy etc)

but the “infirmities” mentioned in vs 26 is not physical, but spiritual.

It says sometimes we don’t know how to pray about a situation. Sometime we can’t find the words to express ourselves when it comes to spiritual sickness, so we just get on our knees in prayer and moan, groan and weep.

Mere physical words seem so inadequate when you are dealing with spiritual matters so you just let the HG in you say whatever it wants to.

You might moan, you might speak in tongues, you might even admit

right out loud “God I don’t know what to say, you have to help me”

-guess what?…..he will but you have to allow it to happen.

Bible says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”

Liberty to do what? To express yourself!

Just open up and express yourself with whatever comes out.

When someone is praying to receive the HG for the first time, I might whisper in their ears that they won’t understand what they are saying but God does. He understands all languages so just let those unlearned words come out and trust God he understands what you are saying.

I Thess. 5:19 “Quench not the Spirit”

When the HG is saying to you to shout…..and you flesh says NO

(you just quenched the Spirit)

Spirit says to witness to someone and your flesh says “I Can’t”

Spirit says to run and you say…No way…

Spirits says clap or shout and you say …Don’t want to….

HG says speak in tongues or give the interpretation or prophecy

and you say “I’m afraid”…..

You are quenching the spirit.

One of your vital signs is off.

But when you are spiritually in tune with God, then your vital signs are going to show up in how you worship him.

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That’s why we shout, that’s why we clap and run around this auditorium because our vital signs are saying “me and Jesus are ok”.

Words can’t always express the feelings we have inside.

We love him so much we can’t always express it so instead our bodies react by running, clapping, jumping, shouting and speaking in tongues.

Prophet Jeremiah described it like “fire shut up inside his bones”…he just couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He had to testify, he had to shout, he had to worship.

When you go into t he doctors and you get your vitals checked out.

You can’t hide your vital signs.

-you can’t just say “well I don’t want the doctor to check my pulse so

I’m going to make my heart quit beating while I’m in his office”

You can’t make your heart quit, or your breathing to stop for very long…..what’s insidehas to come out in one form or another.

When you are in love with Jesus, it will come out; it will show up in one form or another.

Worship is the driving force that flows from deep within us.

Like a stream of bubbling water down deep in the earth, it has to find an outlet to spout forth on the surface.

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When I was a kid we use to sing a song:

“It’s a bubbling, it’s a bubbling and it’s a bubbling in my soul.

I’m singing it, I’m shouting it since Jesus made me whole.

Some people don’t understand it but there’s one thing I know…

it’s a bubbling, bubbling, bubbling…it’s a bubbling in my soul”

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Check your vitals out this morning.

How you relationship with Jesus? How’s that worship coming along?

Warning: An outward “PERFORMANCE” is not real worship but

inner worship motivates an outward reaction.

You just can’t help but do it and the more you do it, the better it becomes.

It’s not a performance or a bunch of going through the motions but it flows from inside you.

I have a personal question. How many of you like to hug and kiss?

News: Hugging and kissing doesn’t produce love.

But it’s the love I have deep down inside of me, that causes me to hug and kiss my wife or my kids.

It’s the love I have deep inside of me, that causes me to express it openly for my savior.

Don’t quench that love emotion.

God put it in you to share it with someone.

If you don’t have anyone else to hug… hug me but no kissing….ok?

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Sometimes teenagers get it mixed up. They think if someone “kisses them” that they must love them….not always true. We adults have learned that.

Love is not just hugs and kissing……true love expresses itself by sacrificing.

-Doing the dishes, fixing the leaky sink, taking them out to dinner, just sending a card or flowers. Putting their needs above your own.

Real love will express itself somehow someway but not just in how good of a kisser you may be.

When two people love each other, you can be riding in a car and you don’t even have to be talking but you can lean over and take them by the hand and you know that means “I love you”.

When a brother walks up to another brother in the church and puts his arms on his shoulder and squeezes it…he’s not giving him a massage, he is expressing his love.

True worship to God will express itself in some outward form eventually. You just can’t keep it inside. It’s impossible when you truly love the Lord.

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What I think is interesting is that God gave us the HG as an expression of his love for us. His Spirit flowing into us and then we speak in tongues as it flows out of us….is a vital sign of his love.

Rom.5:5,8

Rom 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God almighty didn’t think “wow I love those people on earth so much and then looked over at some so called 2^nd person in the trinity, his son as said “you go die for them”….oh no…he wrapped himself in flesh and put on his work clothes if you please and came to earth and died for us because he loved us.

Paul said:

Gal.2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Eph. 3:19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Eph.5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Jesus has shown his love for us in so many ways….

check your vitals this morning. How are you at showing your love for him?

Clapping, shouting, dancing in the isle way won’t produce worship but the love you have deep down inside of you will produce it and it will come out like a volcano erupting when the HG moves in a service.

It’s been called a “mighty rushing wind”

It’s been called “a spring of living waters”

It’s been called “fire in our bones”

But the bottom-line: It’s called worship, worship, worship

The word Worship comes from the root words of “Worth-Ship”

…what you think something is worth is how much you will worship it.

Our words are so inadequate at times.

Our bodies are not capable of responding like they always should, that’s why we’re getting new bodes “in a moment in a twinkling of any eye” when we get to heaven ….so we can worship for an eternity.

Only so many tears can flow, only jump and shout for so long before you drop but worship continues with our words, our hands, our expressions because he is WORTH it.

Ps. 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

God wants our best……nothing else will be considered a sacrifice.

Worship is about a relationship between a man and his God.

Praise can be taught. Even our kids will watch us and mimic us with their praise …….but worship is not “just going thru the motions” or flowing a learned set of moves in choreography but true worship flows from within and expresses itself outwardly.

Praise brings us into Gods presence but worship is what we do when we get there. (repeat it)

Praise is just like calling up Jesus for a date but worship is giving him our love when he arrives.

As a group we sing songs and praise him but when you start to feel God, then you begin to worship him on a one to one basis.

He’s not only an on time God ….but he’s a one on one God.

Got to “work out your own salvation” experience with the Lord.

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If you need the HG this morning, you can come up here and praise him until you pass out. You can sing sings, you can say words and pray pretty prayers and it will make you feel good but somewhere on that journey…..you need to worship him to be filled with him.

If there ever was a need for churches of all faiths across America is not for more praise but for more worship.

There are some awesome song writers that aren’t even HG filled but there is a difference, a big difference in how someone sings the song once they’ve been filled with the HG.Goes beyond talent into a relationship!

You and I can see that on this very platform.

Our musicians and singers aren’t up here performing for me & you, they are worshipping God on a one to one basis and you can feel the anointing!

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Praise is a must during our services

Ps.95:1,2

Psa 95:1 O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Psa 95:2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

Ps.98:1 O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

Ps.100:1,2,4

Psa 100:1 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

Psa 100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Psa 100:4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

But we must go deeper than mere praise; we must check the vital signs of deep worship. What’s going on under the surface?

Worship occurs when our little s- spirit makes contact with his Big S-Spirit.

Ps.22:3 tells us God will come or inhabit where he is being praised but when he gets there, that’s when we make love to him thru our worship.

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During the Christmas season, you and I will play tapes and cds that sing songs about the Lord.

Christmas songs that will be pretty and you will no doubt enjoy them.

However it’s hard for me to imagine some rock star or some country singer that makes their normal living singing about getting drunk or having parties or being immoral ….all of sudden start worshipping him during Christmas time.

They are just praising him with a pretty and trained voice but real worship doesn’t even have to sound good, real worship doesn’t even have to be words, just tears flowing down our faces as we come into his presence.

The cds and tapes may take us to where God is at…. but worship is what we do when we get here…..it’s all about my relationship with the King of King and lord of lords that makes the difference.

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Have you ever listened to altar workers as they are helping instruct someone into the in-filling of the HG?

-they say things like: Get excited, put your heart into it,

picture the Lord right in front of you, give God your voice, he wants

your voice; get desperate in your spirit…..

What they are really saying is “ go from a superficial praise and move into deep inner worship”

Move out of the hallway and go right on into the throne room.

Go beyond the nice words and begin to express yourself from deep down inside and before you realize it, you will be speaking ion tongues.

-tears my flow down your cheeks

-your lips may quiver or shake

-but for sure the presence of God will fill you as he pulls you close

and holds you next to him as a father does his child.

It’s a relationship. It’s a love affair between man and his God.

Church is not a Christmas caroling session…

church is about expressing your feelings in numerous ways.

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Stand: (Musicians come)

When a man loves a woman he will send her letters, cards, flowers and make phone calls just to talk to her. And vice versa. That’s nice!

But that doesn’t compare to the contact when you hold hands, hug, kiss or just look into each others eyes.

When we come to church, God wants your love letters and cards of praise when we sing songs but he yearns to somewhere along the service, for the contact.

When you move beyond mere hallways of praise and move into his

intimate chambers of worship.

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John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Little “s” means with your emotions. Get your emotions involved!

Express yourself somehow someway.

There are millions of people that will gather around the globe today to sing their songs in church services…. and unfortunately most of them will never move past the level of praise. They will never go beyond the pretty words and pretty prayers.

They will just stand out in the hallway singing nice words to the Lord

I’m asking you this morning to check your spiritual vital signs and see how much you arein love with God and then gather around this altar and worship him, express yourself to him, …..

……whether that may be singing, clapping, crying, shouting, speaking in tongues…whatever…..but lets move into worship.

Let’s get out of the hallways of praise and move into the inner bedchambers of worship.

Not only feel it in your heart but express it right now.