John Piper has said “missions exist because worship doesn’t.”
I needed a little time to digest this but I believe he was saying we basically live as Christians to bring glory to the one true God. If everyone was living to bring glory to God then there would be no longer any need to send missionaries across our land or to other countries.
Piper also uses the phrase, “making much of God,” to describe glorifying God. We usually call it worship, or praise and worship. In the mind of most worship means singing praise songs with a group of people who share a common faith, either in a church building or in a small group setting.
However, I believe the biblical act of worship is broader than that. One of my favorite passages of scripture is found in Romans 12:1-2.
In the previous 11 chapters, Paul had been discussing theological questions about righteousness, justification, judgment and salvation. Now he turns to practical matters of living out the Christian life.
The passage reads as follows: “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
According to this passage, worship is basically offering our bodies, our lives, to God as a living sacrifice. Eugene Peterson in the Message paraphrase puts it this way.
“Take your everyday life — sleeping, eating, going — to — work, and walking-around-life and place it before God as an offering.”
Barclay in his commentary said, “The really spiritual worship is the offering of one’s body, and all that one does every day with it, to God.”
Someone has said, “If worship doesn’t lead to obedience or action then we have not truly worshiped”. Isaiah, when he “saw the Lord, high and lifted up,” concluded the experience by saying, “Here am I Lord, send me.’’
My concern with many of today’s praise songs is they are almost all one-dimensional. Certainly we should acknowledge the attributes of God and praise him for who he is. But worship also includes confession, seeking to know God and being challenged to obey, which might lead you to visit a lonely soul in a nursing home, develop a relationship with your neighbor, and love the unlovely. Some of the older choruses addressed these issues.
I remember, “Search My Heart Oh God,” “Holy Spirit Breathe on Me” and “I Say Yes, Lord, Yes to Your Will and to Your Way.” Of course the old hymns, “Send me, O Lord, Send Me” and “I Surrender All,” challenge us to a life of abandonment to the will of God.
The present generation responds to that which moves them emotionally without a lot of thought to crossing the ocean or sometimes crossing the street to live radically for Christ. Pray that we all will be challenged to develop a passion for the Kingdom and be willing to pay the price of a life well lived for Jesus.
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