Cornerstone Church of Blaine 2013 Men’s Retreat

“Everybody worships. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive…

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you…

worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is… they’re unconscious. They are default settings.” - David Foster Wallace, 2005

Worship of God Worship of… Money Career Reputation Glory to GodGlory to Us Homo religioso: Man the Worshipper

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. - Mark 9:30-34

If we are unsuccessful at bringing glory to ourselves, we feel empty. Like failures. If we feel we are successful at bringing glory to ourselves we seek our worship is killed because of PRIDE.

All of this worship for ‘self-glory’ leads to problems with: Identity Immaturity Integrity

Our created identity: worshippers of God. When we try to change our identity and worship other things for our glory, we get problems with our identity. Alternate identities: lead to emptiness immediately they lead to only temporary fulfillment until they become our baseline and fail to satisfy

Emptiness New Identity Self – glory Fulfillment We look to our jobs, families, bank accounts, looks, etc., to give us something they never can: SPIRITUAL FULFILLMENT

Seeking self-glory over God’s glory is immature. False worship leads to immaturity. Immaturity: Rejecting our God-given identity and dreaming about the identity we really want. We fantasize about our own glory.

Integrity: soundness of moral character. Honesty. When we worship God, when our identities are correctly in place, we are the same wherever we are, and whatever we encounter. This is because our God is always with us, and what we worship is always present.

Lack of Integrity: holes in our character. When we worship our glory, we are different when opportunities for glory our present. We try to be glorious at work, in public, or in our dreams, but we are grumpy and unloving to our wife and kids.

There is a war for our worship. Worshipping God is a fight on our own, but it is natural in God’s presence. The presence of God leads us to worship. We are at peace when we bring God glory through worship.