Two Things Worship Is Not

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Amen. Those are wonderful words. 

Sunday’s sermon, on the verses above, was under 27 minutes. I had cut an entire section to make the service a little more concise. The kids did great, and I appreciate those times when we’re all together, and I know we’re also glad to be back into the swing of Sunday School and childcare. That is a significant ministry to our children and families, and especially to new families who are visiting. Thank you to everyone who makes that happen.

Had I given another eight minutes to the preaching, I would have said something to the effect of what you find below. It has to do with the parallel between God working in us that which is pleasing in his sight (i.e. worship) and our doing God’s will.

Our Doing and God’s

To make the parallel clear, the writer uses the same verb twice. Notice the verb “to do” in verse 21 — “that you may do his will.”

Now notice the word “working” in the next line: “working in us that which is pleasing.”

Well, the words “do ” and “working” are the same words in Greek. The word means to “do, work, or carry out.” Here’s a way a paraphrase what the writer is saying in verse 21:

May God equip you with whatever is useful for you to carry out his will,
which means,
God is carrying out in us that which is pleasing in his sight.

We carry out God’s will. God carries out in us what pleases him.

Now we might feel a little tension here, similar to when we read Paul in Philippians 2:12–13 (coming up on March 10!) — 

… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Here is tension, but it’s good tension. God brings about our worship, and worship is what we do. While we live in this mystery, active and surrendered, perhaps the most important thing to get clear in our hearts is to remember two things worship is not. 

Our worship of God is neither automatic nor independent.

Neither Automatic

We don’t automatically worship God. 

Now we do automatically worship — we’re creatures, and the most creaturely habit we have is to worship, it’s just that because of sin, our default setting is not to worship God, it’s to worship everything but God. 

As fallen humans, we are, by nature, idolaters. We are broken and bent to worship things lesser than God … and sometimes that means other creatures, like relationships; sometimes that means created things, like stuff — and what’s really tricky about it is that a lot of times we don’t even realize we’re doing it … we might devote all of our best time and energy to something; we might organize our entire schedules around something; we might fill our minds with thoughts about something all the time and even make it the measure of our happiness — but we wouldn’t say that we worship some thing. 

Idolatry is sneaky in that way. But the worship of God is not. 

We have to mean to worship God. We can only do it on purpose. The worship of God is something that we choose to do. It’s not automatic.

Nor Independent 

But, nor is it independent. We don’t choose to worship God on our own. We don’t up and decide one day, independently: I’m going to worship God now. 

Again, because of our sin, are bent away from God, we’re curved in our ourselves, and we’re spiritually dead! The only way we choose to worship God is if God calls us from spiritual death to spiritual life. God must first make us alive in Christ, by his gospel and his Spirit! He must open our hearts to believe in Jesus and to love him, and then our worship is a response to who he is and what he’s done.

True worship can only be a response to God like this. We’re entirely dependent on him. This is why at the beginning of our liturgy every Sunday we have the Call to Worship. In that moment, we remember that we neither automatically nor independently choose to worship God. We worship God because he has revealed himself to us in Christ, and he has redeemed us to himself in Christ, and he calls us to worship. 

Worship is our dependent response, which sheds a little more light on how our carrying out God’s will is also him carrying out in us what pleases him.

We ‘act this miracle’ every day in our lives of surrender — in being living sacrifices — and I’m eager to act this miracle together on Sunday.