Worship: A Deeper Look
by Pastor Jim Lincoln on September 17, 2006
We believe that worship is our first and foremost priority. It is the intentional submission of our being to God; the surrender of our wills to His purposes; the nourishment of our minds with His truth; the opening of our hearts to His love and the quickening of our consciences by His Holy Spirit. At the heart of worship is sacrifice. God is worthy of the sacrifice of our praise, possessions and bodies.
For eleven chapters of Romans Paul wrote about the goodness of God who made a way for sinners like us to be at peace with Him. He wrote about God's grace to give us the status of righteousness purchased by Christ for us who didn't deserve it. He wrote about God's faithfulness to His promises to Abraham, Israel and the world. He wrote about God's righteousness whereby Jesus became our substitute in two amazing ways:
1. He lived the life we should have lived and then He gives that record of His righteous life as a gift to all who will call on Him and believe in Him.
2. He died the death we all should have died and substituted himself (in our place) on the cross bearing the blows of God's perfect justice so that all we would have to bear are the blows of His love and mercy.
For these blessings and a dozen more Paul erupts into a song of praise and worship. When he managed to write these glorious things down he just couldn't hold back any longer. He had to brag on God the way you and I might brag on the beauty of a sunset, snowcapped mountain or a beautiful piece of music. He sings! His song has three stanzas (11:33-36)
1. The first is about the inexhaustible depth of God's riches, wisdom and knowledge (three divine attributes). 2. The second is about His incomparable majesty (three questions) 3. The third is about Supremacy of God over all things: (from / through/ unto Him are all things)
Paul's song that can make you dizzy because its reach is so high. Our culture is too pragmatically oriented to be very comfortable with songs like this. We have to squeeze ourselves in somewhere in our songs to feel their relevancy. We want the "cookies to be brought down off the top shelf." However, we need songs like this. We need to be reminded that there is a Rock that is higher, bigger, stronger, wiser, more generous and compassionate and loving than anything we are and know. Our souls are too big and at the same time too needy for anything but God in all His glory.
Notice where Paul places his song of praise and worship. It stands as a transition between the great theological realities about God and his exhortations about how to live all this out. So, worship is not only a response to God's inexhaustible holy attributes, majesty and supremacy it's also the primary way or means by which we live out the demands of discipleship.
True worship leads to wonder and joy (like it did here for Paul). And wonder and joy are the main motivations of discipleship. You just can't live the Christian life without wonder and joy. Obligation and duty are good and appropriate motivations. Our discipleship is never less than these things. Metaphors such as 'soldier' and 'disciple' communicate obligation and duty. However, they simply won't be sufficient for God's call on your life. For that you need wonder and joy. Authentic worship does just that.
However, we must tenaciously guard what we find wondrous. Because we are capable of worshipping worship or what we create instead of who God is. I wonder if we come to worship with a dream we have about worship rather than God Himself as He is and for what He is doing. That's why Paul focuses His worship around the inexhaustible riches, wisdom and knowledge of God, His incomparable grace and supremacy. Worship is standing on and leaning on the Rock that is higher than you are. If our focus gets too clever and pragmatic and even too relevant we just won't be able to stand. We can't bear the weight of life without filling our minds and hearts with the majesty and supremacy of God who is immortal, invisible, ineffable and inaccessible.
Now even though Paul was exuberant about his praise he wasn't exhausted. He has more to say about authentic worship. He knows that real worship could never be defined by the things we merely say or sing. Real worship has to do with what you approve of or what you assess in your heart as most valuable and how you live these things out in your daily life. Our English word "worship" comes from the old English word "worthship" Real worship has to do with what you truly prize or treasure up in your heart as that which is most worthy.
Temple Sacrifices To make his point Paul picks up a practice from Israel's temple worship. He's already established that these Gentile believers have been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel; they are the true circumcision; they are they are the true sons of Abraham and true Israel. Israel's story is now their story as well as ours. If there was one image Paul would have us think about when we think of worship it would be the image of an animal being offered to God on the altar of sacrifice in Israel's temple worship. "I urge you brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice pleasing to God which is your reasonable service of worship."
Now these two verses are as dense as Paul can write. Every word is packed with meaning. Look at some of the words. They're from the temple sacrifice worship.
Notice that the OT sacrifices were presented or offered to God. There was always a presentation. To worship is to stop and offer yourself to God for His use. Do you do this? Do you say, "Here I am, Lord. I'm yours. I've been bought with a huge price. Take me and use me."
Living: He expects us to live like this not to perform human sacrifices
Notice he says worship is a holy sacrifice: That means set-apart or dedicated to God's use and pleasure. Worship is a sacrifice: True worship will cost you something. If it doesn't you really don't value it much. What did it cost the animal being sacrificed? Notice that it is pleasing in God's sight. When we worship like this God smiles. We can enjoy His smile and pleasure. Worship is rational or reasonable. I don't know why some translations used "spiritual" here. I suppose because rational worship is something first done in the mind or a spiritual aspect of the body. (logikos means rational). Authentic worship is not magical, mechanical, mindless or hormonal. It's reasonable.
Let me pull out four amazing things Paul says here about worship.
First, He gives us a glorious motivation. "I urge you by the mercies of God."... Now he could have appealed to other motivations. He could have said, "Look, I'm an apostle and I have the authority to tell you what to do." He had every right to do that. But he doesn't. He could have appealed to them on the basis of the lordship of Jesus. That too would have been right and he does so elsewhere. He could have appealed to the eternal rewards of faithfulness. That too would have been accurate.
However, the first thing He thinks of after articulating the gospel so thoroughly is the mercies of God. He's saying, "Beloved, let the realities of God's mercies fill up your heart. Let the tenderness of His mercies grip your heart. As a father has compassion on his son, so, too, the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. Let the certainty and faithfulness of His mercies calm your heart. His mercies are new every morning. Where would we be without this? I can wake up every morning and be amazed and renewed by the mercies of God in Jesus. Let the scope of His mercies stretch out your soul He left heaven for you. He was rejected and crucified for you. Worship is the only reasonable response to the reality of God's abundant mercies. Authentic worship is fueled by the mercies of God. Rule and obligation are legitimate motivations but they just don't produce the same kind of wonder, peace, rest and joy that come from storing up God's mercies in your heart.
The second thing I notice about worship is the extent or scope of worship's call upon us. By the mercies of God present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice. Authentic worship is offering everything about you to God. All that you are, think and do. Paul won't let us imagine that we have worshipped when we merely perform mechanical ritual, say prayers or sing songs as good as ritual, songs and prayers are. But ritual, disciplines and experiences of worship are only as valid as they truly represent or symbolize what we really value and do with the rest of our time and lives. Jesus charged the Jews, "These worship me with their lips but their hearts are far from me."
I think he has two things in mind here. First, worship can't be an exclusive spiritual experience without regard to where my feet take me throughout the week, or where my eyes and ears and mind take in or what we work at, play at or our conversations. Worship encompasses how we spend our time, money, and use our sexuality. Worship is about all of life.
In Rom. 8:13, Paul tells us to put to death the deeds of the body. So, worship is learning to navigate in life through many temptations and dying to many things that compete to give us joy. Isaac Watts wrote, "Love so amazing so divine demands my soul, my life, my all." When an animal was offered and sacrificed it was totally consumed. All of it had to be burned up or eaten to symbolize the scope and extent or the call of God on our whole being.
Half way commitment is irrational. If God made us, sustains us and redeems us for His glory and our joy then it is irrational to attempt to thrive outside the environment of our created purpose. Fish were made for water. They just can't thrive on land. We were made to serve God with all that we are. We can only thrive when we offer our whole selves to God and His blessings and purposes for us.
Third, notice the dynamic or pattern of worship. He calls us to be motivated by God's mercies and to offer our entire bodies to Him. In v. 2 he answers this question, "OK Paul ...how do you do this? How do you offer or present your whole being to God?
Notice the pattern. It's a pattern of death and resurrection. "Do not be shaped or conformed by the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."
Every sacrifice of temple worship was killed. Paul says, "Look, don't kill yourself. Instead kill the urge to be conformed or to be fashioned and shaped by the world or those who don't know Christ and His mercies. This tells me that there is an ongoing negative side of worship. It's about rejecting influences that can easily shape your life. We are by nature a conforming lot. Just look at the way we dress. I have to smile when I hear adults talk about young people and how they are affected by peer pressure as if adults have outgrown it. Adults are the worst about this. Our entire economy is based on conforming to trends. This morning's Oregonian has a section on how I'm supposed to dress for fall. Now I can say that I have never worn a leisure suit. Some of you are so young that you are fortunate to not now what that is. I have to confess that I did wear bell bottoms. But look at those old photographs. What were we thinking!? Well, we weren't thinking. We were conforming. Paul isn't concerned here with fashion. He's talking about core values, your hopes and dreams, commitments, disciplines, joys, insecurities, fears, worries and things you believe or don't believe about God and life.
You'll have to learn to hate some things if you want to love others. I can't love my wife and children if I'm unwilling to hate that which will hurt them. I can't learn to love God unless I learn to hate what He hates. Our culture is narcissistic and materialistic. It's a culture where immediate gratification is the long range plan. It's ungrateful to God and idolatrous. It's consumed with lust of every kind. It's fearful, anxious, prayerless and driven by a sense of entitlement. Don't be conformed or shaped by these things.
Instead, take some positive action or be shaped by another influence. "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
Christian worship is intensely intellectual. I know that is unpopular today. Listen, God is after your heart but he has chosen to move your heart through your noodle. Occasionally someone will way to me, "Well, pastor Jim, that's how it works for you." Notice that Paul didn't say, "Now this is for Pastor Jim or for emotionally reserved Scandinavians and academics." This is an exhortation for the whole church. Your heart can't turn to what your mind doesn't know. Jonathan Edwards said it this way, "The heart can't be set upon an object of which there is no idea in the understanding." He wrote, "A man can't have a taste of the sweetness and excellence of divine truth unless he first has a notion that there is such a thing in his head." He was only elaborating on Paul's, "How shall they believe of whom they have not heard?"
God is after your heart. But your heart needs to hear and lay hold of truth to be liberated and changed. Jesus said "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." If you want a transformed heart that is renewed and not shaped by the world you need to get God's word into you head and into your soul.
Here's how this works,
You say, "I can't do this anymore." Then you remember God's word: Phil 4:13, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength. "
You say, "God hasn't given me what I need." Then you remember Phil. 4:19, "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."
"My temptations are too strong and too severe and nobody has it as hard as I do." Then you remember 1 Cor.10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but with the temptation will provide a way of escape so that you may be able to endure it."
"God hasn't given me the strength to overcome and when he does then I'll obey." Then you remember truth, "I have given you everything you need for life and godliness." 2 Pe.1:3
"My life is hanging by a thread. Where is God?" Then you remember Ps.139:9, "If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast."
"You think, "I'm always afraid." And then you remember 1Jn. 4:13 "perfect love casts out fear."
You think, "No body loves me." And you put it into your brain, "for God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son..."Jn.3:16
Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the children of God and we are.
Beloved, can you see how this works? The pattern of worship is death and resurrection. Or, live life as a baptized person. Die to guilt, shame, hopelessness, helplessness, hell, sin's controlling power, insecurity, fear, worry and greed. By the grace of God, die to these things every day. Don't be conformed or shaped to the world. Become alive to the truth of Christ, grace, mercy, eternal life, God's favor, joy, rest, power, peace and will.
Finally, Paul gives the outcome of authentic worship. The outcome of such worship is that you will more and more find yourself prizing and treasuring God's will for you with a discerning mind and heart. He says, "...that you may prove (test and approve) God's will which is always, good, pleasing and perfect." This kind of worship produces discernment about what God's will is for you. It's a process of testing out your ideas about what is right and wrong through comparing your ideas with the word of truth. You test through trial and error. It's a process of growing and learning. Over the years I have had to seriously test the things I was taught about the faith against the word of God. Some were true and some were not. One of the great regrets I think we have in the church is that we denounced dancing. I can understand why. But to do so was to go beyond the Scriptures. The same can be said with playing cards or drinking a glass of wine. Authentic worship will lead to a discerning mind and heart not just a list of rules or a code. Paul will come back to this later when he address eating meat offered to idols.
But, then, in time you come to not only know and discern what God's will is but by His grace you come to approve it in your heart. To approve something is something you do with your heart. God is after your heart. He's bringing you along to not only know His will but to love it, approve of it, rest and rejoice in it. For now many of us know enough of it. However, we may still be suspicious that we may miss out on something if we obey Him fully. That's why we often sin. We think there is something for us there that God will withhold. Authentic worship leads to approving God's will. It's not that God needs you to approve His will. You and I need Him to discover how valuable and precious His will is for us. That is where He is taking us. And praise God for that. Oh, how I want to be there, don't you? If we worship God as he calls us this is the outcome. Jesus said that God is seeking worshippers such as these. May He find many among us. And faithful is He who calls you and He also will bring it to pass.