From The Hills of Athens

“It looks like you’re killing me, but you’re saving my life.” –Derek Webb

A long time ago, a group of worshippers gathered together to call out to God. They admitted that they had chosen something other than God and they asked for forgiveness. Alongside of confession, the people fasted. The idols they had created were torn down, and they returned to their loving Father.

While this was going on, their enemies heard what they were doing, and made a move to wipe them out once and for all. As they prepared to battle what would be an easy kill, the situation would have looked utterly hopeless to an outsider. An army is pursuing a collection of people who were more interested in prayer than defending themselves. What hope could this group of worshippers have?

Moments passed, and the slaughter seemed imminent. And suddenly, God responds. His thunder sounds, and the army that was so sure of victory is thrown into confusion. The confusion is so severe that the worshippers are able to soundly defeat their would-be attackers. When the battle is over, the leader of the worshippers prepares a reminder of the event. A rock…a stone of help…an ebenezer is placed at the site of the salvation.

While this story of salvation may be unique to the Israelites, as followers of Christ we should all have a story to tell. A story of worship saving our lives. What seems like foolishness is the exact thing that saves us. What triggers these memories for you? A song? A picture? What is your ebenezer…your reminder?

This morning we sang “Heart of Worship” in church. I’ve sung that song a hundred times at least, and I’ve even led other people in singing. I usually always tune in to the line “It’s all about you Jesus” as a reminder of what my attitude should be in any act of worship, but today something new caught my ear. Just after that line, the song says “I’m sorry Lord for the things I’ve made it.” Total God moment since we are talking about transforming worship into other things tonight.
In Matthew 4, Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread. At first glance, that doesn’t seem like much of a temptation. If Jesus is hungry (which he probably was) and he could turn stones to bread (which he probably could), then why not turn a rock into a nice croissant? I always figured that the temptation was about breaking his fast before he wanted to…in other words he was being tempted to eat too soon. I never thought it could be something else, until I read “In The Name of Jesus” by Henri Nouwen. Nouwen says that the temptation wasn’t really about eating; he says that this was a temptation to be relevant. To do what made sense at that moment. To be useful. Jesus had to decide if he was going to be a person who found worth in his problem-solving abilities or if he would simply just be a hungry person in the desert. A hungry person who didn’t solve the problem, who didn’t come through, who didn’t deliver.
I say that we are tempted to transform every time we choose to worship. We are tempted to ask for relevant worship; we are tempted to want worship that makes sense to us and worship that we like. After all, if we like country music, why shouldn’t the worship music sound more like Keith Urban? Or if we like Coldplay, shouldn’t the worship band play something that resembles Clocks? Relevant music is an illustration of our limited hold on what worship is. It’s music to us…it’s a piece of a service on Sunday morning. But read on in Matthew 4 because the devil is about to clue us in.
In verse 9, the tempter promises Jesus everything if he will just “bow down” and worship him. He doesn’t ask for Jesus to sing him a song in a style he likes. He doesn’t say that he needs him to show up at church twice a week. He asks Jesus to assume a posture…he asks Him to bow down. What do you bow down for? Probably nothing. The last time I bowed, I think I was pretending to be in All Valley Karate Tournament facing some goon from the Cobra Kai dojo. We don’t bow, and yet that’s the literal meaning of the greek word “to worship.”
You see, we have bought into the temptation. We have become relevant. We have turned stones to bread…we have made worship something else. When you bow, you really give the other person all of the power. You can’t see what’s going on, and your whole being says that you are not the object of focus. And that sounds like a good beginning to a working definition of worship. We don’t need to be concerned with what’s going on around us because we aren’t the object of focus.
May we think less about music and style and our own enjoyment and more about how we can put our focus on the One who is worthy of all worship.

Tomorrow we begin a new series with the students centered around worship. We will look at different biblical stories together on Sunday nights as well as expieriment with forms of worship (singing, prayer, journaling, etc). On Wednesdays, we will be watching a DVD series by Louie Giglio, Worship: That Thing We Do and discussing it in small groups. While all of this is going on, the students will have the opportunity to participate in a 30 Day Expieriment that consists of reading a Psalm each day and then journalling their response.
I feel that misunderstandings and the fear of asking questions have led to a diminished ability to worship. Worshipping really isn’t that hard…in fact it’s the most normal part of our life. Anytime we have something that we love, we worship it. From HDTV’s to the California Club at Jason’s Deli, we all have things that we worship naturally. The trick is centering our worship on the Creator of everything else that competes for time in our lives.
Think about most of the ways that we worship God: we gather with other people in a large room, stand up, sing together, listen to someone speak, and then we go home, finished with our worship time. We go home to normal life. The whole experience seems to be de-void of something…most notably de-void of God’s presence. How much easier it was for Jews thousands of years ago. You see, they knew that God was with them. When they entered the tabernacle, or later the Temple, they knew that God lived there. He said so. The Jews saw it happen. (start with Exodus 40:34) There was this great building made of stone that housed the object of their worship.
Things are different today. God lives everywhere. God lives in us (1 Corinthians 3:16 & 17). How do you visualize that? God lives in us…do we sing toward our chest cavity? Or should we think of God in our midst? (Matthew 18:20) I envy the Jews because they did not have to try and understand their worship in some abstract manner, God lived inside of the stone building.
But then a sermon by Beth Moore gave me a new persepective on what it means to worship. As followers of Jesus, we have a special distinction: the Bible calls us “living stones.” (1 Peter 2:5) Picture this for a minute: what does a typical worship service look like to God? Is it a bunch of people sitting/standing in a large room, or does He see something else? Does He see His followers, His “living stones” all together? What would a bunch of stones gathered together look like? Could it, perhaps, look like a stone building? What if, when followers of Jesus gather together, we basically build a temple simply by our gathering together? And what do you think happens when we give God a place to dwell among us? I’m thinking that he is right there in our midst.
That image is powerful to me; it keeps me from worshipping a God that is far away or somehow locked within my skin. It keeps me centered on the God who has promised to live among me and be my God.
So Part A of our Worship Series is this: When we worship, God dwells among us.