A Community of Worship
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (I Peter 2:9)
Ministry to God comes before all else. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he began, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” God is our creator and sustainer, and we are his creatures. When we worship God, we choose to step away from the world’s fantasy that we are the center of the universe, and acknowledge God for who he is.
Without praise and thanksgiving, we lose our identity and the blessing God holds for his people. Explaining the darkness around him, Paul said, “For though they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and reptiles.
“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” (Romans 1:21-25)
Jesus came to restore true worship and to bring back to us the wisdom, the glory, and the blessing of God. “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23, 24)
There are four ways we express this worship: through direct adoration; through personal obedience (I Samuel 15:22, 23; John 14:15); through service (Matthew 25:31-46); and through the proclamation of the gospel.
Next: Prayer