Worship has always been about the whole person, with the
whole of their life, serving and delighting in God.
Worship
“Worship: A God-Centered Life”
Pastor Brandon Cash
Romans 12:1-2
January 8, 2017
A Lengthy (but helpful) Definition of Worship:
“Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to
God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely
because he is worthy, delightfully so. This side of the Fall, human
worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provisions
that God has graciously made. While all true worship is Godcentered, Christian worship is no less Christ-centered. Empowered
by the Spirit and in line with the stipulations of the new covenant,
it manifests itself in all our living, finding its impulse in the gospel,
which restores our relationship with our Redeemer-God and
therefore also with our fellow image-bearers, our co-worshipers.
Such worship therefore manifests itself both in adoration and in
action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship,
which is worship offered up in the context of the body of believers,
who strive to align all the forms of their devout ascription of all
worth to God with the panoply of new covenant mandates and
examples that bring to fulfillment the glories of antecedent
revelation and anticipate consummation.” (Carson, Worship by the
Book, p. 26.)
A Good Reminder:
“I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most
balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks,
misfits and malcontents praised least. The good critics found
something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones
continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to
read. The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought
up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very
modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all.
Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise
almost seems to be inner health made audible.” (Lewis, Reflections
on the Psalms, p. 94)
OT: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your might. (Dt. 6:5)
NT: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with all
your strength. (Mark 12:31)
OT: [P]eople draw near with their mouth and honor me with
their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their
fear of me is a commandment taught by me. (Is. 29:13)
NT: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is
far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as
doctrines the commandments of men. (Matt 15:8-9)
OT: In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you
have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin
offering you have not required. Then I said, “Behold, I
have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I
delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my
heart. (Psalm 40:6-8)
NT: Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body
have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin
offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold,
I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in
the scroll of the book.’” (Heb. 10:5-7)