Has the June issue of The Briefing reached your mailbox yet? If so, I hope you are finding it stimulating reading.

We in the editorial team are gearing up for the July/August double issue, which is on the topic of giving up your life. You may recall that The Briefing's mission statement goes something like this:

We seek to persuade all Christians of the truth of God's purposes in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible, and equip them with high-quality resources, so that by the work of the Holy Spirit they will:

• abandon their lives to the honour and service of Christ in daily holiness and decision-making
• pray constantly in Christ’s name for the fruitfulness and growth of his gospel
• speak the Bible's life-changing word whenever and however they can—in the home, in the world and in the fellowship of his people.

It is this first point—abandoning your life to the honour and service of Christ in daily holiness and decision-making—that forms the the theme of this month's Sola Saturday posts and next month's Briefing. This week, Robert Doyle looks at the concept of giving up or sacrificing your life in the context of worship—specifically, Jesus' worship:

Worship is sometimes described as the missing jewel in the evangelical crown. It has become perhaps the major focus of a majority of Christian churches in the second half of this century. But once again, our focus reveals our sinfulness. By placing our own activities in church under special focus, we have grabbed the wrong end of the worship stick. In our concern for relevant ‘worship’ we have reversed the Bible's concerns. For in the New Testament, worship is not so much something we do, but it is first of all and mainly something Jesus Christ does for us!

Jesus, our liturgy leader

In its breathtaking sweep of his portrait of the person and work of Christ, Hebrews describes our Lord as the ‘liturgy leader’ (leitourgos, Heb 8:2). In the context of the epistle's argument, Jesus is the Minister of the sanctuary. Jesus Christ is the One True Worshipper, the Leader of our worship, who has gone ahead to lead us in our prayers and intercessions.

As such, the leitourgia, or worship, of Jesus is contrasted with the leitourgia, or worship, of sinful human beings—even at our religious best. Jesus' activity is the worship and offering which God has provided for humanity and which alone is acceptable to God:

The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.

Somewhat surprisingly, the acceptable worship which Jesus is said to offer is not an especially pure kind of sacrifice—although it has those overtones—but is primarily his obedience. Have a look at Hebrews 10:5-10 and note how the obedience of Jesus is contrasted with the ceremonies and rituals of religious worship.

Jesus' life of self-offering to the Father was on our behalf, on behalf of the world. This offering culminated in the one true sacrifice of love and obedience on the Cross, which alone is acceptable to God, for all people for all time. In this offering we are sanctified (Heb 10:14).

Worship is obedience, the obedience of faith

Therefore it is no surprise that Romans 12:1-2 declares that all of life is now to be seen as worship:

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 (latreia). 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.

Here and in the following chapters Paul goes on to detail this ‘offering of the body’ in the practical terms of daily relationships, including paying taxes! That is, worship is moved from the ‘sacred’ sphere of special places and special times and made very ordinary, or secular. The worship God wants of Christians is obedience, the obedience of faith. John records that Jesus' disciples approached him and asked, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” “Believe in the One he has sent”, Jesus replied (Jn 6:28-29). The worship God wants of us is faith, trust in his promises given to us in his Son. This is the faith which if true to the magnitude of God's promises is to underpin and drive every activity of life.

Because Jesus Christ is the One True Worshipper on our behalf, worship is not now to be seen as something properly belonging in a building, but rather as the entire life of faith. The worship God wants is our whole life of faithful obedience, and as shocking as this may seem, it belongs more in the kitchen, the workshop and the street than in a church. Indeed, in describing what goes on inside churches, the New Testament writers only very rarely use the worship words which abound in the Old Testament.

Historically, Christian theology and practice quickly lost ‘worship’ as a word to describe all of life, and reserved it to describe what happens in church—to describe our address to God. As a consequence it was re-sacralised, and church-ified, invested with a meaning quite contrary to that given by the New Testament and the person and work of Jesus Christ it witnesses to.

Read the full article online (1847 words).

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