Discipleship: Worship

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Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Romans 12:1 (NIV)

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What is worship? Sometimes in our ‘human’ness we have the tendency to over-complicate, exaggerate, and sculpt worship into something it isn’t. When this happens, in my experience, there are generally two types of worship: worship as a performance, and worship as a routine. Neither of which are intentional, as God intended, or anything close to what worship truly is. For many, worship becomes a habit, a routine, a part of ‘duty’. Whilst there is a time and a place for routine and structure (believe me…I love a good routine) worship should not be consigned to meaningless rituals, and traditions, which happen in the hours of a Sunday.

God doesn't want this.

It is not what He intended.

It is not a part of being a follower of Christ.

Turning up every Sunday to Church and going through the motions is not going to make you a better disciple, or even get you to heaven. So, I ask again, what is worship?

We start with the core of discipleship – God. Without an authentic relationship with Him, worship becomes about a weird book, some pointless singing, and a wacky person who won’t shut up about living like a bloke from Millennia ago. You see, without the proper context, it has no meaning. However, put in the right context, having a relationship with God, worship becomes about God. So, we come to the first truth of worship – Worship is about our relationship with God.

Let’s take that thought one step further. Not only is worship about your relationship with God, it is about your response to Christ. Bear with me, let me explain what I mean. Jesus came to earth and died on a cross for you, to repair the damage done in the past and provide a way to bridge the divide between man and God. As part of this, we (humans) came into a thing we understand and call ‘Grace’ - God’s unending, absolute love for us despite us not being worthy. For those who accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and seek a relationship with Him, they will receive eternal life. This is where it links to worship as a response to Him. Accepting Jesus is just one part of the story. The other part is a call to a live a life worthy, disciplining ourselves in the way Jesus taught and seeking a proactive part in a relationship with Christ. So, we come to our second truth – Worship is about our response to the love shown on the cross.

Our relationship with God, our response to the love on the cross, is missing one final truth. In the Bible, we read of what worship is about.

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So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognise what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

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Just 7 letters long and worth just 19 points on the Scrabble Board, yet in those few letters, so much is condensed and described. Worship is about (in the words of a famous furniture company) ‘the wonderful everyday’. It is an all-encompassing feeling and action. So, we arrive at our final truth - Worship is about your whole life.

As disciples of Christ, we are called to live a 'simple' life, worshipping Him, not a life that is segregated by ‘home’, or ‘school’, or ‘work’ or ‘spiritual’. A life of worship.

Worship - Our relationship, our response, our life. So often taken out of context, mistakenly used, but today I want to challenge you on this Palm Sunday - are you a worshipper like those found on the roadside at Jerusalem, there one day and gone the next? Or is your life a living-breathing sacrifice for Him?

King of endless worth

No one could express

How much you deserve

Though I'm weak and poor

All I have is yours

Every single breath

'The Heart of Worship' - Matt Redman