We are not servants who worship, but worshippers who serve

It’s crucial to our spiritual health that we view our Christian life first and foremost within the context of worship.   John Piper’s classic missions book, “Let the Nations be Glad” asserts that the purpose of missions is to create worshippers.  Mission exists where worship does not.  But this truth about the foundational nature of worship doesn’t just apply to mission, but to all aspects of the Christian life.  We must think about the Christian life this way—it is meant to be lived as a worshipful response—to the gospel--to all that Christ is for us and all he has done for us. 

  All that Christ is for us and what he has done for us is doctrine—truth about Christ’s Person and mission, but in response to those truths, we worship.  We see this progression from doctrine to worship [some says doctrine to doxology] all over the place in Scripture.

We see it in the way that Paul structures his great treatise on the gospel—the book of Romans.  In the first 11 chapters, he gives us the doctrine of the gospel--our need for the gospel because of God’s wrath on sinners, how God saves us and the glory of that salvation.  At the conclusion of the doctrinal section, we read in Romans 11:33-36 Paul’s response to the gospel he has just taught.  “³³ Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ³⁴ “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” ³⁵ “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” ³⁶ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”   It’s as if in writing about the gospel, Paul is reawakened to its glory and he spontaneously breaks into this glorious doxology.  

Notice also what he says in the next verses in 12:1-2.  Paul writes, “¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  First, he ties what he says here to his teaching on the gospel with the word translated “therefore.”  He refers to the gospel as “the mercies of God.”  Some translations say, “in view of God’s mercy.”  In view of the gospel of God’s mercy—worship him—which he describes in terms of temple worship--“presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”  Paul sees the life of the believer to be in the context of worship.

Hebrews chapter 13 teaches the same truth about life in Christ.  The author is comparing the atoning death of Jesus with the bloody sacrifice of animals outside Jerusalem.  Verse 12 says, “¹² So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.” ¹³ Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. ¹⁴ For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. ¹⁵ Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”  Our lives are to be seen within the context of continual worship.  Perhaps hours before his execution, Paul writes in Second Timothy 4:6, “⁶For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.”  Paul lived his life as worship and as Paul is looking to his impending death, he sees that within the context of worship.  He lived as a sacrifice of worship and he will die as a sacrifice of worship.   

Think about two other common ways believers fundamentally identify themselves and notice their weaknesses.  For instance, if you look at yourself primarily as a servant—that can be a formula for burn-out.  Christians ARE servants—no argument.  But if the primary way in which you conceive of your life in Christ as one who serves, the emphasis is placed on what YOU are DOING to serve Christ, not what Christ has done for you in the gospel. 

If the truth that fundamentally shapes and controls your understanding of what it is to be a Christian is to be a child of God, that brings imbalance as well. We certainly are God’s children if we are in Christ and we must never lose the sense of intimacy and love that truth conveys.  But if you see yourself fundamentally as a child—that image does little to express reverence and awe in response to the fact that God is a consuming fire.  If however, we see ourselves primarily as worshippers, that sets parameters of how we should look at God as our Father who we relate to in great intimacy and as our Master who we worship through our acts of service.  This understanding of ourselves as worshippers also enables us to understand God as a holy, majestic, transcendent God before whom we bow in awe and reverence.   We are NOT servants who worship God.  That makes worship just a piece of the pie.  Worship IS the pie!  We are not God’s children who worship him.  We are worshippers who serve God and have been adopted by our Father as his children. If we could internalize that truth-- that we are not servants who worship, but worshippers who serve, it would do much to keep us on track.