We Worship the Living God
Introduction
I want to close this marathon series on Living as God’s People in God’s World. We were looking at the questions: Who are we as God’s People? What is our mission? What are we here on earth for?
Let’s review what we have learned. God’s people are a people who know the story they are part of, God’s story. We are a people who care for God’s creation. We are called to be a blessing to the nations. We are a people who walk in God’s way. We are redeemed for redemptive living. We represent God to the world, and attract others to God. We are a people who know the one living God and Savior, and we bear witness to the living God. We proclaim the gospel of Christ. We live and work in the public square where we are to be holy. We are called to suffer as we stand up and speak out. We are sent, and we send others, to be and do all these.
Today and next week we will see that God’s people are a people who worship, who praise and pray.
1. Worship is the Goal of Mission
The worship and glory of the one true living God is the goal of all our mission. That’s because the goal of all human life is to love, worship, glorify and enjoy God.
Let’s think about these questions: Why do we have a relationship with God? Who is God to us? Is He just a higher power to help us get through life and have a good, successful life? Do we worship God to play it safe, to make sure that we go to heaven? And with God as an insurance policy against hell, we can get on with our life. Every now and then we do the church thing to keep this relationship alive.
No. God created us to have this special fellowship with him. He created us to love, worship, glorify and enjoy God. Enjoy God? Yes, you heard right, enjoy God. We enjoy, delight in God when we find joy in our relationship with God, when we live every moment with God and for God.
You worship and enjoy God when you do your work for God. You are energized, motivated, filled with joy, and doing your best because you are doing it for God.
You are out in God’s creation, logging, hunting, fishing, hiking, feeding cows. You see God’s glory in the beauty of his creation. You experience his presence. You are filled with awe. You experience incredible joy. You worship and enjoy God.
You are in church, and while hearing God’s Word or singing his praises, you are overcome with joy. You are in your inner room doing your personal devotions. You are overcome with this inexpressible and glorious joy because you feel his presence. You cannot see him, but you know he is there with you. You are in awe. You fall down and worship him. Or you burst out in praise and song, or just shout out in joy. Or you just sit in silence and enjoy his presence.
You are in pain and suffering. You may even be angry with God, argue and fight with him. But in it all you rejoice, give thanks, and worship God. You experience this joy and peace that cannot be explained.
This is what happens when we love, worship and glorify God in everything we do. We delight in the Lord. We enjoy being with him. We enjoy living for him. We enjoy worshipping him. We enjoy God.
This is what God’s mission is all about. God loves us, and this love drives God to seek the ultimate well-being and blessing of human beings. We experience this blessing and well-being when God brings us into a relationship with himself. Jesus Christ restored our broken relationship with God. Through Jesus Christ God brings us back into fellowship with him. And in that relationship, in that fellowship we love, worship, and glorify God, and we find our greatest joy in doing so.
And this is also our mission as God’s people. We live to bring others to worship and glorify the living God because it is in that worship that they will find their greatest fulfillment and joy, not just for a short while, but for eternity.
Our mission is to bring all the nations to the obedience that comes from faith so that they will rejoice and praise the Lord. Paul described this well when he explained his mission in Romans 15: 5-20:
“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written:
“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing the praises of your name.” Again, it says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.” And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles; let all the peoples extol him.” And again, Isaiah says, “The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; in him the Gentiles will hope.”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”
Paul ends his letter to the Romans with these words (Rom 16:25-27):
“Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith — to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.”
God fulfilled his promise to Abraham through the Lord Jesus Christ. God is bringing people of all nations into this relationship with himself. God is using us as agents of his love to bring people to worship God.
John Piper in his book Let the Nations be Glad explained this well: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship is, therefore, the fuel and the goal of missions.”
2. Worship is the Means of Mission
Worship is also the means of mission. We worship God, but we must make sure that we worship God in the Spirit and in truth (John 4:24). We cannot call others to worship when we are not worshipping ourselves, or when our worship is not authentic.
Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform 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.”
When Solomon built and dedicated the temple, the Lord’s glory came and filled the temple. God’s people worshipped the Lord at the temple attracting the nations to come and also worship God. Now today, after the cross, after Christ, where is the temple? Where do we worship God before the world?
1 Cor. 3:16-17—“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.”
1 Cor. 6:19-20—“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
Eph. 2:19-22—“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
We are God’s temple! Each one of us. Our bodies are God’s temple! And all of us together are the temple of God. As church we are the body, the living body of Jesus Christ in this world!
That’s why Paul tells us in Romans 12 to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. When we live according to God’s will, we please the Lord. Our whole life, all of life, everything we do, everything, is an act of worship.
We worship, adore, and glorify God for who he is, the sovereign all powerful Lord, the only, true, living God who is faithful, gracious and whose love endures forever.
We worship God for what he has done. We give thanks, rejoice and praise God for his mighty acts of creation and salvation. When we worship and enjoy God with our whole lives, we tell the nations that the Lord God is worthy of our love, our loyalty, our faith, our hope, and our worship.
Thus, worship is mission. Through our worship we proclaim the living God. Through our worship we witness to what God has done in Jesus Christ. Through our worship we make disciples of others.
As God’s people we engage in missional worship. We praise and pray to show the world God’s love. We praise and pray to show them the joy of living every moment with God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
How will you worship God this week with your life? When you work and do something — it can be anything — doing home work, that boring school assignment, filing your tax returns, coaching the basketball team, practicing for the next game, fixing that truck that broke for the 20th time, looking for calves in the freezing cold — whatever you do this week, I want you to pause, to become quiet, and reflect — God is with me. God is in me. I am doing this activity, this work, this project, this game for God. Then pray, “God, I am offering this work and my life to you. I am doing this for you.” Thank God for the chance to worship him through what you are doing. Then do it, and rejoice in the Lord while you are doing it.
All of life is worship. And while we live every moment with God we call and invite others to live with God, to enjoy, love, worship, and glorify the living God.