Miles McPherson warns against halfheartedly worshiping God
San Diego megachurch Pastor Miles McPherson warned in a recent sermon that Christians shouldn't be "blasé" in how they worship God, advising believers to truly acknowledge the presence of the almighty God and His image-bearer, Jesus Christ, this Christmas.
McPherson, a former NFL defensive back who pastors the multi-campus Rock Church, preached a Dec. 4 sermon titled “Heaven Came Down” — the first part of a four-week Christmas series focusing on “the eternal significance of Jesus’ birth."
As Christmas is a time when attention should be focused on the birth of the Savior, McPherson, 62, called on believers to stop being “blasé” about worshiping God and to start “encountering Jesus” instead of “mobbing” after celebrities.
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“A lot of times when we are worshiping, and we are like this [hands down, non-energetic], we are not encountering God,” he said. “I don’t mean you can’t worship with your hands down. But when we are just kind of blasé about it, we are not acknowledging the presence of the holy, awesome God. Because if you ever really saw God, you would melt.”
McPherson recalled a video he saw on social media of rapper Kanye West, who legally changed his name to “Ye” and has been surrounded by controversy over his anti-Semitic remarks in recent months, as he walked through a large crowd.
“I was watching on Instagram Kanye West; who is very far from God, but to a lot of people, he’s famous. And he was walking through this crowd, and people were just mobbing him,” the pastor said. “I’m like: ‘what?’”
The pastor advised his congregation to apply that kind of zeal toward being in the presence of the Lord: “Imagine what it would be like if you saw God.”
“My encouragement to you is when you get up in the morning or when you come to church — and not even on Sunday [but] every single day — that you spend time encountering God before you start your day,” McPherson said. “You say, ‘Lord, I want to see you.’ Not that you are going to see Him with your eyes, because God has given you sight to go beyond your eyes. He has given you perception to go beyond your ears. That is called faith. By faith, you would encounter the presence of the living God and the reality of the living God in your life.”
The pastor said that in the New Testament, “images of God” are found in Jesus, who is the “image of the invisible God.”
“He shows up and says, ‘If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father,’” McPherson recounts. “‘We are so much one that I am revealing Him to you. You are not going to see Him. I am going to represent Him of what you are going to see.’”
In the same way, God shows Himself to humanity through His Son, McPherson said God never stops seeing His children through constant divine observation.
“He can’t not see you. … God provides for you because He knows your need. … If you tell God, … ‘I got it on my own,’ your need might not [be] met,” he said. “But, when you say, ‘God, I’m going to trust you,’ He will guide you where your needs will be met.”
Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected].
