COG 76: Worshipping God in October

You only have one change to worship God this October. Don’t miss it! Join AMBrewster as he outlines just a few of the many ways God’s people can glorify Him this October.

The Year Long Celebration of God is a family resource from Truth.Love.Parent., a ministry dedicated to rooting families in God and maturing families for God so they can harvest blessings from God.

Discover the following episodes by clicking the titles or navigating to the episode in your app:
Halloween Episodes
Celebrating God at Church Series
What is Worship Series
Biblical Discipleship

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Transcript

Introduction

If there were ever a time of year that born again believers might think it were hard to glorify God, October may just be that time.

Of course, all Christians understand that they need to worship God whether they’re in prison, on vacation, in school, at a party, or in the Roman colosseum. But of all the secular celebrations, Halloween is the one that leaves people feeling uncomfortable. And since there aren’t any other holidays in October, the whole month manages to feel like an extended Halloween.

And yet, God expects us to worship Him every day in October.

So, today I want to talk about how Christians can adore God and give Him the preeminence every day — including October 31st.

But before I do that, I want to invite you to join The Celebration of God on Facebook and Instagram. Various times throughout the day we do our best to focus your attention on God and give you a celebration prompt. 

You can obviously be blessed by our content, but you can also like and share those celebration prompts with your fellow disciples and be a blessing to them as well.

We’ll be posting all through October to help you set your minds on things above.

Topic

Now, this episode is not going to be about whether or not you should celebrate Halloween. We already have an episode dedicated to that, and I believe — regardless of what your personal conviction currently is — you should give that episode a listen.

Instead, today’s show is about how you can worship God all month long. That means that I will talk about Halloween toward the end, but that’s not the main focus.

So, here’s how I want to approach this.

In October there are five Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. And there are four Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. 

Think about that. In the whole month of October, you only have five opportunities to glorify God on a Friday. There will only be four chances to please the Lord on a Tuesday.

I hope that puts each one of those days into perspective. 

Now, let’s get even more specific. You only have one today to give God the preeminence. Sure, there may be many more days this week, month, year, and over the course of your lifetime, but you only have one chance — right here and right now — to glorify God with this moment.

That means if there’s something more Christ-honoring that you should be doing other than listening to this episode, you should shut this off and do that other thing.

This is why The Year Long Celebration of God exists. We want to help you succeed in worshipping God every day of every year.

So, let’s review some of the topics we’ve already covered on this show.

In order to glorify God on Sunday, we need to start with a biblical posture toward the Body of Christ. I encourage you to listen to our Celebrating God at Church Series.

We won’t worship God on Sunday if we don’t understand the purpose, motivation, and kind of assembly with whom the Lord would have us fellowship.

No Christian can claim to celebrate God if they refuse to participate with His church.

But what about Monday at work? What about Tuesday at school? How about Wednesday at dinner and Thursday at soccer practice? How do you celebrate God on Friday morning, and how are Christians to worship God on Saturday?

Praise God that there are so many ways! 

And I look forward to exploring them with you in the future.

For now, though I encourage you to listen to our What is Worship Series. In that short series we explore the nature of worship and discover that the best worship always involves discipleship.

God doesn’t leave us here just to live. He leaves us here to do life with others. We’re to invite unbelievers to know God, and we’re to help other believers to know God better.

To that end, please avail yourself of our growing library of episodes dedicated to Biblical Discipleship.

If just one of those Wednesdays goes by without you engaging in redemptive relationships with the world or the church, have you really pleased the Lord as you should?

Jesus Christ “is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything” (Colossians 1:18). 

True Christian worship seeks to give Him that preeminence in all we do because “He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:13-17). 

This is why “we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also [we] labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within [us]” (Colossians 1:28-29).

With a vision and calling this miraculous, how could we not engage in daily evangelism and discipleship?

By the way, if you’re a parent, your discipleship responsibilities are clearly outlined in Scripture. I encourage all dads and moms to subscribe to Truth.Love.Parent. There are over 450 episodes dedicated to discipling parents as well as helping them evangelize and disciple their kids.

Of course, so much more could be said about worshipping God at work and school and band practice and on vacation. In fact, later this month, I’m planning to do an episode about Celebrating God with Recreation.

But, with the time we have left, I want to circle back to the idea about worshipping God around and on Halloween.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a number of resources that deal with this question, but here’s a few thought provoking questions.

1. Does God deserve your worship on October 31st? 

That one’s easy. The answer is yes.

2. Can you worship God by avoiding Halloween?

I believe the answer is, “Yes.”

However . . .

3. Can you worship God by engaging biblically with the elements of Halloween?

Be very careful answering this question. 

What are some of the main themes of Halloween in American — fear, death, pain, idolatry, satisfaction?

Does the Bible have anything to say about fear? What about death? Is there anything in the Scriptures about pain or idolatry? Does God teach us about satisfaction?

Though one need not participate in a Halloween party or go trick-or-treating, should a follower of Christ simply ignore what God has to say about satisfaction and idolatry? Do we stop talking about how God would have us respond to fear and death simply because it’s October?

Do you remember the answer to our first question? Yes, God deserves our worship on October 31st. And yes, true worship will encompass all that God is and says and does. That means that we should be able to worship Him as we meditate on His teaching and promises concerning death and fear and pain, idolatry, and satisfaction.

My point is, if you avoid Halloween, be sure to do so in a way that actually pleases the Lord, and if you engage with it, do not sacrifice the worship of God for worship of self.

Conclusion

In conclusion to this shorter-than-usual-episode, consider this your monthly reminder to give God what He deserves.

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” every single day in October (Romans 12:1).

Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets and join us next time as we expand on the idea of “Using Death to Celebrate God.”

I’ll see you then.