Worship? Why?

Someone suggested that we write on worship. Right now, that is like watching cooking shows while participating in a fast.

But, hopefully we will increase our already hungry appetite to return to corporate worship soon.

We are most fully human when engaged in worship. In fact, as we will eventually see, worship is a natural to us as breathing. We all do it … all the time. It’s part of the autonomic system of the human heart.

Worship is the end of redemption. When God called Moses to be the deliverer of his enslaved people, he gave him a sign. But it was a strange sign. It was a sign that he would have to wait on. “Trust me,” God says, “in the future, you will return to Mount Sinai, and my people will be worshiping me. Then you will know that I have sent you, and I am the redeemer.” (Exodus 3:12)

Worship as the end of redemption is the ultimate act at the end of history. “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.” (Revelation 22:3, ESV)

What is “worship?” When we say “worship,” we usually mean “that thing we do on Sunday mornings.” Or, maybe, “that thing we do when we are emotionally moved when listening to a song on the radio” (actually, this is close to the meaning of the word).

Worship is to give something or someone their proper worth (that is actually the etymology of the word “worship” is from the Old English). But etymology doesn’t always give us proper understanding. Sometimes we use words differently from how they were originally used.

So, let’s turn to the New Testament. The word that we usually translate as “worship” is “proskyneō.” In John 4, Jesus says that God should be worshiped (“proskyneō”) in Spirit and in truth.

But the word “proskyneō” is also used in other ways. In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a parable about a man having to pay an unbearable debt. The man gives the master his proper devotion by imploring (“proskyneō”) him. Likewise, in Matthew 20, the mother of James and John honors Jesus while asking him for a favor. She kneels before him (“proskyneō”) to give him his honor. In both of these instances, they give the person their worthy by kneeling before that person.

So, worship is to give someone their worth. And therefore, worship is not primarily about what you get from it, but whom you give it to.

Or, to say it another way, we do not come to worship primarily to “get” from worship, but to “give” to God.

“There is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God … The way you forget about yourself is by focusing of God — not by singing about doing it, but by doing it.” (Carson, Worship by the Book, pg. 30-31)

There is a subjective experience of worship, but the subjective experience must become secondary to the object of our worship.

Thus, the subtle shift that can happen in our hearts is that what we are experiencing in worship becomes more important than who we are experiencing. “As a brother put it to me, it’s a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset.” (Carson, 31)

This principle of worship is essentially important: God alone deserves the glory. But let’s be honest, that takes a massive shift of our hearts. We are naturally bent to put ourselves at the center of the story and our needs as the central focus of that story.

We need to be unbent. Or rather, made straight.

What (or rather, whom) we worship will either bend us more, or will straighten us so that we are more fully human.

In our next post, we will focus on how to refocus worship. But, here’s the teaser: we become what we worship either for redemption or for ruin.

Outrage Is Not a Virtue

Outrage is not a virtue, but it is too often in my own heart. Outrage that others don’t agree with my positions, outrage that others don’t value what I value, and outrage that people aren’t doing what I think they should do. You may not always see it, but it is often there under the surface of my heart.

But, outrage is not a virtue. Rather, it is a more subtle form of the deeds of the flesh, particularly these “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.” (Galatians 5:20)

Outrage is usually found growing in the fertile ground of self-righteousness. It is an attempt to build my identity and worth on what I believe, what my “gut just knows”, how much I’ve read, my expertise, etc. — this list goes on, and on.

But, love and outrage are seldom found together. And, if you have to give up one or the other, give up outrage. Because, whatever is causing you to rage is not nearly as important as the person you are outraged against.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1–3, ESV)

This has become so vivid to me as I have studied the prophets over the years. God’s anger against Israel for forsaking his ways is really slow. It takes him hundreds of year before he sends them into exile, and then he only sends them away for 70 years (which he seems to cut short).

Now, Israel had completely forsaken the covenant. They were worshiping the gods of the nations. They were trusting in the nations for safety rather than the Lord. They had given themselves over to sexual immorality.

But, the Lord loved his people. Surely, the apostle Paul had this love in mind when he wrote these familiar words in 1 Corinthians 13.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–7, ESV)

It is hard to reconcile outrage with patient and kind, and “does not insist on its own way,” or “is not irritable or resentful.”

God, in his love for his people, joyfully overlooks a lot of our sins. And, God in his anger is slow to wrath.

This is why the Spirit of Love produces these fruits in his people’s lives — “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22–23, ESV)

There is no law against these things because these things are who God is. And, God is making us more like himself.

Let’s take outrage off like a bad outfit that we once thought was so cool, but now we look in the mirror of God’s patient love and see that it’s like a leisure suit from the seventies.

So, let me give us some practical steps to putting off outrage.

  1. Hold your ideas, your gut reactions, and your opinions as loosely as possible. That is not to say, “Don’t have opinions about what God has said,” but practice epistemic humlity. If you are around someone who is highly trained in their field, you will find that they are quick to tell you how much they don’t know. That is epistemic humiliy. There is a direct relation to how much you know and how much you realize that you don’t know. In other words, the less you actually know, they more sure you become.
  2. If social media is a fueling source of your outrage, get off of it. I am no longer on Twitter for this reason. I think this is cutting out your eye if it causes you to sin. This is true for news media too. And, if you don’t think these things are effecting your outrage, get off of them for a few days and see what happens to your emotions.
  3. Slow your roll. Don’t form your reaction based on your intuition or initial reaction. Do this because “love is patient” — so just slow down. Slow down and ask if you have all the information. Then ask, “Do I know what to do with all of this information?”
  4. Demote what matters. It’s not that things don’t matter. If God addresses it in his word, then it matters. Many things are deductions from his word, and those matter too. But, not everything matters equally. That is, we should save our strongest opinions for what the Bible is most clear about. In other words, we should demote things — we shouldn’t feel as strongly about everything!
  5. Instead of choosing to believe the worst possible motive, we need to assume the best possible motive. We do not have windows into each others motives. If we are honest, we don’t always understand our own motives. Since “love hopes all things” we should chose to believe the best about others, and the worst about our own motives. That is a grand gospel reversal!

Hope During Corona – Day 6

Day 6 of our reading come from Tim Keller’s book, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering.

“no matter how well we have put together a good life, no matter how hard we have worked to be healthy, wealthy, comfortable with friends and family, and successful with our career—something will inevitably ruin it. No amount of money, power, and planning can prevent bereavement, dire illness, relationship betrayal, financial disaster, or a host of other troubles from entering your life. Human life is fatally fragile and subject to forces beyond our power to manage. Life is tragic.”

You can download today’s reading here, and find the book on Westminster Book’s website.

Also, Ligonier has made all of their videos free during the next couple of months. This is a great resource for redeeming the time that is in front of us. There is an abundance of great teaching here that will anchor your soul in Christ.

Hope During Corona – Day 5

Day 5 of our readings brings one of my favorite authors, Ed Welch — A Small Book for the Anxious Heart.

“Think manna. For forty years in the Sinai wilderness the Lord gave his people manna one day at a time. If they tried to save some for the next day, it grew moldy. The only time they could keep it overnight was in preparation for the Sabbath, when they were to rest from work. The Lord was teaching his people to depend on him one day at a time. Each morning they had to trust him again that the bread from heaven would fall from the sky.”

You can find the daily reading here.

Hope During Corona – Day 4

Our reading for today comes from a new book of published prayers — Piercing Heaven.

We over value authenticity and spontaneity, and rob ourselves of depth and stability. If you haven’t had the joy of leaning on the prayers of others, you are in for a treasure of joy and peace. I often find myself not knowing how to pray or what to pray, often the published prayers of others ground me and teach me.

You can get the whole book at Westminster Bookstore, who is also offering free shipping using the coupon code (READSLOW).

Hope During Corona – Day 2

Day 2 of our reading is from David Powlison’s book God’s Grace in Your Suffering.

He asks this penetrating question — “When you face trouble, loss, disability, and pain, howdoes the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ meet you and comfort you? How does grace and goodness find you, touch you, work with you, and walk with you through deep waters?”

You can find the reading here.

Also, you can find the book God’s Grace In Your Suffering at the Westminster Bookstore website.

Hope During Corona – Day 1

These are deeply uncertain times.

As I mentioned yesterday, these are days where our anxiety will increase. I have found myself wrestling with the general sense of uncertainty, my own heart has been restless as it grasps for rest.

Over the next weeks, I plan to send out resources, thoughts, etc. to help us navigate the Corona Virus in light of God’s promises.

Westminster Bookstore has release 15 chapters from different books. I will forward these on to you one day at a time to give us some teaching from the Lord to shape our hearts.

The first one is from John Murray’s book, O Death Where Is Thy Sting (a collection of sermons), chapter 13 is a meditation on Lamentations 3. You can download the chapter here.

In Christ,
Pastor Paul

PS – if you want to download all 15 chapters, you can find it here. But, it will be more fun to read them together day-by-day.