Not at all. Joining with
God’s people to proclaim the wonder of Jesus is important. But probably the
most sincere worship is how we live our life after we disperse from the church
building. Romans 12:1 makes this point:
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is
your spiritual worship.” Apostle Paul tells us to use our bodies to
do latreia, worship or service. The
word can mean doing religious rituals, but it is also doing acts in the world that make God’s character concretely visible.
The word is used to refer to a monetary gift that was collected for the
Jerusalem Christians when famine hit, and also for Epaphroditus’s delivery of
the gift for Paul from the Philippians.
So when you serve people out of compassion or grace or love or kindness or
justice, you are doing worship. You are glorifying God, making God’s glory, his
character, visible.
In the Book of Isaiah chapter one, the Lord got
angry with Judah. They were going to church, singing songs, spreading their
hands in prayer, even giving tithes. But the Lord wouldn’t receive their
adoration. The rest of their life wasn’t glorifying to him. They needed to do
whole life worship and not just a few hours one day a week. So God commanded them to remove the evil of
their deeds from before his eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek
justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, and plead the
widow’s cause as acts of true worship. God is right – serving people in the
name of Jesus and in the character of Jesus is the most satisfying form of
worship ever.
From Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions
By Mark Driscoll and Gerry
Breshears
(Crossway Books: Wheaton,
Illinois), 2007. Page 178
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
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