Sojourn’s Worship Arts Pastor Mike Cosper explains the Biblical understanding of worship and the theological groundwork behind “Before The Throne” in this article.  Part One appears below; stay tuned for Part Two:

2 Corinthians 6:16:

For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

The “real world” is a deceptive phrase. If we’re not careful, we come to believe that the things we see, the things we touch, the people, places and built environment around us are the truest thing, the deepest reality. But the world itself points to something deeper. A floating iceberg is only a hint of something massive hiding under the surface of the waters. Seeds become oak trees. Viruses wipe out populations. The smallest object- a pebble, a blade of grass - contains a virtual universe of atoms and energy. The things we see are only half truths, like the front page of a newspaper whose inner pages contain stories about people and places our minds can’t imagine.

There is no such thing as empty space. Even in the great vacuum of the universe, not a cubic inch of it exists apart from the watchful, sovereign presence of our God. The One who speaks the universe into being, who fills it with meaning, is also present at every moment and in every place. He is Lord of macro and micro, molecule and mountain. This is the reality Paul describes when he says that in Him we live, move and have our being. Or as quoted above, that He lives with us and walks among us.

As we journey through our tiny lives, working, playing, resting, feasting and gathering together, we are always in His presence, and each moment is an opportunity to bless Him, welcome Him and worship Him. It is also an opportunity to offend, to curse and to deny Him. When we begin drawing lines in our life with “sacred” and “secular” moments and places, we begin carving up places where we acknowledge and deny God’s presence. We keep God at bay in our workplace but welcome Him in our churches, hospitals and funerals. We ignore Him in our homes or with our friends but cry out to Him in the shadows and from the darkness.

Life wasn’t meant to be lived this way. Adam and Eve knew nothing of “sacred” and “secular” moments in their lives before the fall. All of life was an organic whole - the work of tending the garden was as much a moment of worship as the walks with God were. It was only when sin entered the world that boundary lines were drawn up. The sacred/secular distinction showed up in the form of a shabby fig-leaf tunic.

But even then, worship didn’t stop. There is no on/off switch to our worship. It is always on; we can no more stop our worship than we can stop our pulse. To be a human being is to be a worshipper. The question then becomes where our worship is directed. For Adam and Eve, it was the god of self. They were tempted by the ability to be like God, and for the sake of the idol of self, they fell into sin. Other God’s soon followed suit. As Romans 1 describes it, we exchange the glory of our Creator for the worship of created things.

God cares a whole lot about where our worship is directed. His first commandment is about worship - “You must have no other gods but me” (Ex 20:3). He tells us that he is a jealous God (34:14).

Our true gods reveal themselves most clearly through our actions. The things we’re pouring our lives out for, sacrificing our time, money and energy for, making priorities in our homes and careers; these are our objects of worship. To worship, in its simplest definition, is to ascribe worth - to say that something is “worth it,” whatever “it” may be. Harold Best says it like this: “At this moment, and for as long as the world endures, everybody is bowing down and serving something or someone - an artifact, a person, an institution, an idea, a spirit or God through Christ.”  Our lives and actions are a testimony to the things we are working for, sacrificing for and pleading for.  If our god is self, stuff or status, then our lives will testify to the glory of those things. Our actions will tell the world around us that we, or our things, or the opinion of others, are the most important thing in the universe.

In John chapter 4, Jesus tells a Samaritan woman that God is seeking worshippers who will worship him in Spirit and Truth. This is in contrast to the debate of the day between the Jews and Samaritans, who argued that worship was about time and place - which mountain to worship at, which calendar to obey. This is also in contrast to many of our current debates about worship. If worship is fundamentally about Spirit and Truth - which are matters of the heart and mind - then issues like style, sound and expression are dwarfed. Jesus is constantly looking to the heart in the Gospels, and worship is no different.

The gospel is the simple truth that God is holy, we are sinners and Jesus is our savior. His life, death and resurrection have made possible a new reality of living in God’s presence. As Jesus uttered His dying breath on the cross, the temple curtain - which separated sinful men from the actual presence of God - was torn in two. Hebrews 10:19-22 puts it like this:

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

The separation between a holy God and sinful man was ripped in two, and bumbling sinners like you and I were invited to boldly enter in. It’s a life informed and transformed by God’s Word and the Church - the people of God who are united by the gospel. It’s a life lived in the twin reality of things we see - those people, places and things before our senses - and things hidden from us - the powerful spiritual forces of good and evil, the presence of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit, a world full of angels and demons, fire and doves, just beyond the veil of our vision. Instead of the tame world of the church we see caricatured on TBN or in TV sitcoms, we should see it as the vast and wild world that the Scriptures tell us about. We should be assured that just beyond our scope of vision, God is with us, and the world is being transformed.

Our worship, once corrupted into futile celebrations of self, is restored and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. The Father receives it as a blessing. We should marvel at the thought of our weak offerings being a blessing to our Creator.

Our lives are then lived towards God as citizens in that hidden world of which we’ve only seen flashes and glimpses.  Our work as citizens is to help usher that reality forward, prayerfully and continually seeking to make the connection between the world we see and the one we long to see. No longer trapped in a lifeless cycle of self worship and worship of idols, our lives now become a beacon to the glory of our God, revealed in Jesus Christ.

So often, we look at our church services as times and places where we start and stop our worship.

End of Part One.  Stay tuned for the second (and final) installment.

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