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Key Verses:
"You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you." Neh. 9:6
Key Attributes:
God is the Only True God, the Almighty, the Only Wise, Only True God. He is a jealous God, sharing His glory with none other.
Key Issues:
- It's not even about putting God first but of setting Him up as the Only True God, the only One to be worshiped.
- It is about giving worship to none other than the Lord, keeping Him in His rightful place.
- It is about turning from all else in order to turn to Him alone.
Key Focus:
For what can we exalt Him above all else?
By definition God would be the One of whom there is no greater. The God who made everything, and who imparts life to everything, is thereby greater than anything else. Part of worshiping Him involves singling Him out as the One True God of whom there is no greater. He is exalted above all creation. No object, person, celestial or man-made being comes even close to Him.
Implications for the Worship Leader:
- Watch for building a dependency on you. Help people learn to guard their own hearts and lives against idolatry lest they become like the Israelites when their leader died. Judges 2:19 says "But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them."
- Build opportunity for confession into worship.
First, there needs to be a confession of our failure to exalt Him. As a church we need to admit to God that we have allowed other things to take His rightful place.
(See Neh. 9:3-6 and 1 Jn. 1:9.)
Second, there needs to be a confession of Him as Lord. We turn from our idolatries to Him as the Only One to be exalted. We single Him out from all else.
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father"
(Phil. 2:9-11).
Implications for the Individual Worshiper:
- Constantly remind yourself that God is the Only True and Living God so you are not pulled away and enticed to allow something else to take His place in your life.
(See Deut. 8:19, 2 Kings 17:37-41.)
- Ask God to search your heart and "see if there is any offensive way" in you. Are you exalting any one or any thing above Him? Then ask Him to lead you into a life that singles Him out as the Only True God. (See Ps. 139:23-24.)
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