Watching paint dry worship

How often do you feel like God is moving?

How often do you go to Church and walk away with the same feeling you did going into Church?

Empty.

How did this happen?

How did we stop getting excited to worship God?

We do a better job at worshipping our sports teams then we do God.

Guilty as charged.

Sometimes I walk away after Sunday and wonder if people really feel the presence of God?

This is something that has always amazed me with the Christian Church.

The first time I went to a Christian Church was when I was about 16.

I thought I was going into an environment like a black southern gospel Church.

It was the weirdest feeling in the world.

I walked in to see a whole bunch of white people with barely any intention of worshiping God.

In middle school we attended a very much southern gospel Church in Lansing.

This Church praised God, while I went to school with them and saw them as complete hypocrites, they knew that Sunday morning they were giving it all to God.

They lifted their hands they went down to their knees, they jumped up and down.

They didn't care what anyone thought.

They praised God with every muscle and ability in their body.

Then I go to the Christian Church and see all white people with no movement.

I went to a building but I didn't feel God move.

How did this happen?

Saturday's and Sunday's afternoon's we are at the edge of our seat.

We jump up and down celebrate when our team knocks off Michigan or Purdue or Da Bears or the Patriots.

How did this happen?

We come on Sunday and we hear, "Were coming here to worship a God who died for all our mistakes, sins and gave his life for us."

What do we do? We here one person like Terry Strickler yell, "Amen."

Then the rest of us sit quiet.

Then we wonder why people aren't coming to Church?

They don't see us excited, they see us lethargic.

We made praising God look like watching paint dry.

I have often heard and said, "Well, that's not my personality to jump up and down and yell at the top of my lungs."

Yet that is what I do when Michigan State knocks off Michigan for the second year in a row.

Where did I go wrong?

Where did we go wrong?

In Mark 2, people heard about Jesus and came to see his power.

There were so many people gathered, there was no room left.

The people knew the power of this man, and had to see them.

Listen to what they did in verse 4…

"Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on."

Jesus saw this and healed the man.

They did whatever it took to see Jesus.

They tore through the roof of someone's house to see Jesus and to feel his power.

This was the same Jesus we have accepted and have looked at during our faith.

This story happened long before he died for everyone's sins.

We know both stories yet worship God like we watch paint dry.

We expect Jesus to work when we want something but when it comes time to appreciate him do the complete opposite.

It takes 10 minutes of a guest of a Church to know whether or not they are coming back or not.

Why 10 minutes?

They can see if God is moving, if the people are excited to be there and if this is a place for worship.

Do they stay or do they go away?

Then we don't think about change.

My friend Jason and I were talking and he said he would not go to a Church that has an old style in worship because there are too many barriers that keep people from reaching the lost.

So many people are wrapped into what they want if their Churched changed they would feel out of place.

Imagine how our visitors think at our Churches?

Think they feel out of place and can't wait to leave?

I once had a conversation with my brother Zach about Church.

We talked about how some people claim faith and their idea of faith is going to Church on Christmas and Easter.

Zach has no problem calling them out on this.

You have faith, but it's not enough to go every single week?

Part of the reason I love Zach, he tells it the way it is.

We all long for something more, Jesus is it.

How did we dumb it down to the point people don't feel God move?

When was the last time you felt your faith on fire?

Felt it completely move towards God?

Has this ever happened?

So many people claim to be good Christians by going to Church on Sunday then have trouble finding their Bible the rest of the week.

Even more, the Church has Bible's in the pews so we don't even have to bring a Bible to Church anymore.

I have heard people claim to feel the closest to God when they were in the woods by themselves.

There is a time for devotion and meditation and that is great to have.

But if God created each of us in his image, why don't we show that to other people?

Why do we struggle with how our neighbors and us don't get along and we don't have an ability to forgive.

I wonder what Jesus actually thinks when he see's our faith or I should say lack thereof faith?

We wonder why Jesus went among the sinners and ate with them instead of the religious people of their time.

Yet do you think Jesus would spend time with you today?

Are you so enclosed in a Christian circle you have no friends that aren't Christian?

That isn't right.

Where's your faith on Sunday?

What about the rest of the week?

Watching paint dry is boring, yet that is how we made our faith.

What do you think?

Have a great day.