True Worship is About Sacrifice and Life
A deacon was separated from his wife because of an affair he had. But he picked his wife and children up every Sunday so they could attend worship together, sitting together in the same pew unless the deacon was busy serving during parts of the worship service. When he was questioned about how he could be a deacon while living with another woman who was not his wife, he answered that his lifestyle didn't matter--as long as he worshiped God correctly.
What???
This is a true story, told to me by another minister who actually asked the question.
We've come a long way in the wrong direction when we think God cares about how we worship on Sunday morning more than he cares about how we worship with our lives.
Didn't you know that our lives are to be worship services for God? This is what Paul means when he writes in Romans, "Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is true worship" (12:1).
The early Christians knew that their public, gathered worship was merely a function of the their true worship. They gathered together to learn to serve each other, not to run through a list of "approved" activities. In Acts 2:42-47, the Christians are pictured publicly worshiping God, but more attention is paid to their "true" worship--how they served each other, prayed for each other, loved each other, and shared possessions with each other.
It's easy to be fooled into thinking that keeping rules is what God wants. After all, that is how we caricature the Jews in the Old Testament. They completely missed God because they focused on trying to please him by keeping the law, which we, as mature, smart, 21st century believers, know is impossible. But then we turn around and do the same!
In Colossians 2:6-23, Paul runs through a number of ways fake Christians were trying to control the worship of others. Paul's challenge to the false teachers is, "Back off!" He tells the believers not to let people judge them by requiring days of worship and certain activities. Because true worship is never about control, rules, and manipulation, but about serving others and building them up (1 Cor. 14:26).
God doesn't want the rules, he wants you. And as Paul reminds us, the way to know the will of God is to be transformed by him (Rom. 12:2).
We're not transformed when we follow rules so we can check them off our list. We're transformed when we live our lives completely for God, becoming a spiritual sacrifice for him, which is our true worship.
What???
This is a true story, told to me by another minister who actually asked the question.
We've come a long way in the wrong direction when we think God cares about how we worship on Sunday morning more than he cares about how we worship with our lives.
Didn't you know that our lives are to be worship services for God? This is what Paul means when he writes in Romans, "Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is true worship" (12:1).
The early Christians knew that their public, gathered worship was merely a function of the their true worship. They gathered together to learn to serve each other, not to run through a list of "approved" activities. In Acts 2:42-47, the Christians are pictured publicly worshiping God, but more attention is paid to their "true" worship--how they served each other, prayed for each other, loved each other, and shared possessions with each other.
It's easy to be fooled into thinking that keeping rules is what God wants. After all, that is how we caricature the Jews in the Old Testament. They completely missed God because they focused on trying to please him by keeping the law, which we, as mature, smart, 21st century believers, know is impossible. But then we turn around and do the same!
In Colossians 2:6-23, Paul runs through a number of ways fake Christians were trying to control the worship of others. Paul's challenge to the false teachers is, "Back off!" He tells the believers not to let people judge them by requiring days of worship and certain activities. Because true worship is never about control, rules, and manipulation, but about serving others and building them up (1 Cor. 14:26).
God doesn't want the rules, he wants you. And as Paul reminds us, the way to know the will of God is to be transformed by him (Rom. 12:2).
We're not transformed when we follow rules so we can check them off our list. We're transformed when we live our lives completely for God, becoming a spiritual sacrifice for him, which is our true worship.
