1 July
In the previous sharing on radical discipleship, we noted that radical disciples of Christ in His ‘body’, each one different from the other, but together, as transformed disciples, empowered by God’s Spirit, characterised by love for one another and for those in the world, go forth to bring the gospel to those around them, and contribute to the building and bringing in of the kingdom of God.
True discipleship is intimately tied up with true worship of the Triune God. Worship cannot be limited to what we do in church on Sunday. Worship means submitting to Jesus Christ in every area of our life and that is something we cannot do by ourselves. It is impossible for us because it clashes with our natural desire to live to please ourselves rather than the God who made us. The truth is that we all worship – but the question is who or what we worship. By nature, we worship ourselves; we live as if we are God – and that is the essence of the fall in Genesis. From there, we live for our desires, our comforts, our ambitions. But Jesus calls us to change. He demands that we dethrone ourselves and live instead for him as our king. He commands us to throw our own crowns at his feet and start living lives of submission and obedience to him.
If we understand what true worship means, we can understand that true worship is impossible without Jesus Christ. God has come to earth in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that changes everything – worship is no longer at any place, any religious place, any shrine – true worship is dependent now on a person, not a place; on Jesus, not the temple. Jesus is the fulfilment of all that went before – the time has come because Jesus has come. We must come to a special person for true worship – the Lord Jesus – he rose from the dead and is alive today, and through him we are able to enter into a direct and personal relationship with the true and living God.
True worship is impossible without the Holy Spirit; true worship is supernatural. It is not something I can offer by myself – I need God’s help, by his Spirit, to worship him properly. True worship is not just words, but actions as well, for I show what I really think about Jesus by the way that I live. In truly worship, I need to change the whole direction of my life; worship means showing my love for Christ by living for him in my family, among my friends, at work or school, among my brethren- hence notice how this is similar to radical discipleship which affects every area of our lives. True worship is possible only by being born again, by being in Jesus, and having Jesus in us, enabled and empowered by the Spirit of God, by being true followers of Christ, by being his true disciples!
Jesus explains in John 4: 19-24 that the true worshipper worships God in Spirit and in truth. And truth is in Jesus when he declared: “I am the way, the truth, and the life”.
Jesus challenges our lifestyle. We know that if we start worshipping him, that worship cannot be contained in a little building on a Sunday. It is bound to have repercussions for every part of our lives and we do not like the sound of that. By nature, we worship ourselves. Christians are still sinners; and worship of self is also present in Christians as we seek to put off the ‘old man’ and put on the ‘new man’. How prominent it is in the lives of Christians is dependent on how radical our discipleship is; it is also dependent on how much we worship ourselves as contrasted with the true worship of God in our lives.
This would be sorely tested in the final days; when the devil, antichrist and the false prophet seek to replace the Holy Trinity – whom we worship, how true and real is our worship of the Triune God – all these would be tested severely and they would determine the outcome of our faith and Christian lives – will God be pleased with us or would he demand repentance and loyalty in the testing of our faith? (see the book of Revelation).
(B)
Our discipleship and true worship of the Triune God would be sorely tested in the face of opposition, persecution, spiritual warfare, particularly in the final days, as revealed in the book of Revelation.
Lest we think we will not be among those who deny the Lord, we need to remember what happened to Apostle Peter. Peter was confident that he would not be among those who would deny the Master; he even declared he was ready to die with the Master. We know how he subsequently denied the Lord 3 times, and even cursed that he knew not the Master. The Lord was gracious to him and reinstated him; he was later recommissioned to lead the ministry.
However, some years later, Peter withdrew from fellowship with the Gentile Christians in the church in Galatia, when the Judaistic Christians came down from Jerusalem, and Paul had to speak up and ‘correct’ Peter on that occasion. The issue was significant and it could have caused the church to split into a Jewish church and a Gentile church. More importantly, it affected the purity of the gospel preached – it implies that the gospel is not sufficient to save – it requires something extra, in this case, circumcision.
Peter withdrew because of fear of the Judaistic Christians; remember Peter denied the Lord Jesus years earlier because of fear also – fear of being associated with Jesus and the possibility of facing trial and even crucifixion. We need to acknowledge however that the spiritual attacks on Peter, as a leader, was intense, but it also revealed that Peter, even after Pentecost, still was plagued with the same problem of fear and the need to preserve his personhood and reputation.
This illustrates the reality that unless we seek fully God’s honour and glory, in the midst of intense persecution, with the weakness that still exists in us, it is still a real possibility for us to fail the Lord and to deny him, or deny his values and teachings. This is especially so when the going gets really rough, and the opposition and attacks become more and more intense. If Peter could fail in these two instances, what more ourselves?
We need to nurture radical discipleship and deep and true worship of the Triune God if we hope to be victorious for God in similar intense situations in our Christian life and discipleship. Let us not be presumptuous; let us not be over-confident. The best way to be well prepared and to ensure that we would stand is to develop our spiritual lives and faithfulness to the Lord, in big and small ‘things’, in big and small areas of our lives.
The saving work of Christ makes worship possible. He alone is the truth; there is no other way to God. He provides the revelation and the redemption, without which true worship is impossible. The truth is not found anywhere except within the gospel of Christ, proclaimed in the Bible. It is God’s truth in the Bible that fuels our worship of him. Also, we will never respond to the truth without the help of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth. God’s Spirit uses the truth, his word, to draw us to Christ, to make us worshippers and to sustain us in a life of worship and true discipleship.
True worship of God the Father is only possible through God the Son, by God the Spirit as we hear God’s truth from his word, the Bible. Note the significance of the Trinity and the Scripture. And true worship fuels boldness, discernment, and the quest to pursue God’s glory and honour in our Christian lives; this is exactly what radical discipleship means, and it would carry us through the fiercest storm of life and through the greatest waves of opposition! Whether it be fear, the desire for comfort and selfish ambition, the yearning to be well received by others and well-thought of, – all these are actually manifestations of the worship of self and self-life. It may not be prominent but if it is still there, hidden in the recesses of our hearts, the devil knows how to ‘inflame’ it and to manipulate it in such a way that we rationalise away our failures and feel that we need to be realistic in this world, and thus excuse ourselves into unfaithfulness unto God. It can affect the very best of us, like Apostle Peter, particularly those in leadership roles. The devil seeks permission from God to sift such individuals.We need to pray, not only for ourselves, but for our leaders and those in positions of responsibility.
(C) 2 July
A life of worship began when God enabled us to understand the truth about Jesus and respond to it with faith and repentance. If we are to continue in genuine discipleship, and to continue to worship him properly, we need to keep hearing the truth about him. Worship never begins with us; it is always a response to the truth. It flows out of an understanding of who God is and what he has done for us in Christ. It begins with his revelation and redemption. So we must ensure that the Bible, which contains that revelation and points us to God’s work of redemption, stays right at the heart of our meetings and our own spiritual lives.
We must not divide the Spirit from the truth and refer to anything emotional (for instance a time of singing) as the Spirit’s work, and refer to anything cerebral (such as Bible study) as the truth at work (although God can certainly use singing, music and Bible study to draw us to the truth and worship). What we need to realise is that God the Spirit uses the truth, his word, to draw us to Christ to make us worshippers and to sustain us in a life of worship. We need all three if we are to truly worship God: Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the truth.
We now focus on a passage that truly brings out the relationship between worship and discipleship for the Christian:
“Therefore, I urge you, brethren, 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” (Romans 12:1-2 NIV).
Romans 12 is one of the turning points of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians. Chapters 1-11 focus on what God has done for sinful human beings. The theme of chapters 12-15 is what we should do in response. Paul is actually saying that since God has done so much for us, now live for him. Firstly, he refers to ‘God’s mercy’. Are we gripped by the mercy of God? If not, we will never worship him. An understanding and appreciation of God’s mercy to us is the fuel that energises and empowers our worship of him in all parts of life; it also helps us to be merciful to others and to love them even though they are unlovable and do not deserve our mercy.
True worship is not about human beings trying to win favour from a reluctant God. It is always a response to God’s initiative in sending Jesus to be our saviour. It flows out of a grateful heart as we remember what God has done for us: ‘in view of God’s mercy’.
The message of God’s mercy to us is not just for non-Christians and young believers – it is for all of us! We are to keep it in view throughout our lives – worship and discipleship requires a remembrance of God’s mercy. If we continue to keep this truth in our hearts, it would help us to persevere in gratefulness to him and not ‘to grieve him’ who has done so much for us, and to murmur and complain at every point of inconvenience and pain in our lives.
Notice in the passage that there is still a sacrifice that we are called to offer – not the blood of goats and bulls – but the sacrifice of ourselves. In other words, Paul is telling us not to bring a sacrifice like the Israelites of old, but to be one. God wants us; this is our spiritual act of worship! We present ourselves as a sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
Take note also that our worship of God is connected with our minds, our renewed minds. In many religions, worship and the mind are divorced; in fact, we are encouraged to switch off our minds with the help of certain bodily exercises and the repetition of certain mantras or statements.
Today, people are looking for ‘spiritual experiences’ – not in fact looking or searching for truth. They are interested in what they call ‘spirituality’.
Unfortunately, many people who come to church are also looking for an experience. They do not want to think, they want a direct encounter with God. They want to feel his presence with them; and when they do, or at least when they think they do, they call that ‘worship’. For them, worship is primarily to do with the feelings rather than with the mind. But the Bible will not allow us to divorce the two. True worship will certainly involve our emotions, but it does not begin wth them; worship is rational, it involves the mind.
Worship involves thinking because it begins with what God has done for us in Christ. It is a response to what I have understood about his mercy; if we switch off our minds, we break the connection with the truth that prompts our worship.
But the body also matters. Worship is not just a purely intellectual, mental activity. It is not a mystical experience, inward and abstract. It is also about what I do with my body as I offer it, not to myself for my own gratification, but to God in his service. It is about what I say with my tongue, what I watch with my eyes, where I go with my feet, what I do with my hands, and with my relationship with the opposite sex. Have we offered our bodies as a living sacrifice to God; have we begun to worship him?
But what does this mean in practice? Paul continues: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” If we are to worship God properly, we must be prepared to be non-conformists, to stand out and be different for God’s sake, not just to be different per se. We can worship with gusto on Sunday, but it is not so easy on a Monday morning or a Saturday evening, when we are surrounded by colleagues or friends who have no desire to live God’s way.
You cannot judge a church’s worship by what happened in the hour or so when they meet on a Sunday; the real test is how the members behave during the rest of the week. Are we conformists who fit into the world’s mould? Or we true worshippers who obey God, even at a great cost to ourselves?
True worship should define the whole of our lives! It is in fact intimately connected with radical discipleship in following Christ our Lord and being like him in our outworking! Only those who truly worship God and follow the Lord Jesus in true discipleship would prevail and be victorious, even when other so-called believers ‘retreat’ and abandon the narrow way in the face of tremendous opposition and persecution!