WORSHIP IS THE LITMUS TEST FOR SPIRITUAL MATURITY

HOW MUCH WORSHIP DO YOU NEED?

I have heard so many people over the last year or so say that they don’t need that much worship. I understand what they are saying. they don’t need all that singing and modern worship music. I have even heard someone more recently say, they "don't need that much worship music." I understand what they're getting at. They don't need that much singing in a church service. The problem with that statement however, is that it assumes that worship music is about me or us. Worship music isn't about you, it's about God! What we have done in modern worship music is distilled things down to four songs that might or might not make me feel good.

WORSHIP WARS

I can remember the worship wars back in the early 90s, we fought so hard to get drums and guitars into church we might not have been fighting the right battle. Back then we were fighting the battle to be able to express ourselves in worship. However, looking back on things now we didn't fight the battle to keep God at the center of worship. It was more about the music. I look back on that with some sadness because my generation was the one that was fighting that battle that allowed people to be more expressive through different forms of music. Music that was not previously allowed in church. I am however glad that new forms of music emerged. I have to confess my part of making it more about the music than God. I am also sad now at that outcome, and that people can say with such ease that they don't need that much worship music.

WORSHIP LITMUS TEST

I believe the depth of your worship life is a litmus test for your spiritual maturity. If you spend little time in worship and giving God worth with your words, with your life, with your body, with your music, with your song, with your writing, with your pocket book, with your heart, with your soul, with your mind, and with everything you are, then I could say with a high degree of certainty that you are a spiritually immature Christian. I come to that conclusion because the Bible is full of allusions and references to spiritually mature people who spent an inordinate and exorbitant amount of time in worship and praise. You could take almost every single biblical character, and look at their worship life, and see how spiritually mature they were according to how they worshiped. 

US SHAPING CHRISTENDOM OR CHRISTENDOM SHAPING US

What I think we do in most of Christendom is we create a Christendom that works for us. We want something that fits our lifestyle, that matches our values, and that fits into the scope of what we want to do. What we haven't done is let Christendom form us. David said it this way, "I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honour.” (2 Samuel 6:22). David didn’t care that he was perceived by the people as foolish. He knew that his redeemer lived. He was worshipping a great God who deserved great worship. He was letting his love for Christ form him, and he became undignified. So in David’s eyes and so many other Biblical characters, worship was not about whether or not I liked to sing, and liked the music or didn’t like the music, it was done because JESUS WAS WORTHY! So they all brought to him their "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" to express their undying emotional love to that worthy king. David danced with all his might, and the new testament Church also worshipped daily. "They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity.” Does that sound like the church in the NT was saying, “I don’t need that much worship?” No on the contrary they couldn’t get enough. They wouldn’t stop. They worshipped continually. Now I know that doesn’t mean they sang all the time. But worship certainly includes that. We have lost the passion somehow to make much of God through worship. How did that happen, when God wants and asks for something more?

     WHAT DOES GOD WANT?

What does God ask of us? In the end what does God really want? He wants people everywhere to recognize him as God and Creator and worship Him. As Romans 1 points out, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t WORSHIP him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused." (Romans 1:20-21 emphasis mine) So what we see from this passage is that Worshipping God, the creator, is the most basic thing that he asks of us. And I do believe that the Bible throughout teaches us that loving heartfelt worship should be a pattern of our Christian lives. Jesus said it himself, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”(Luke 7:47 emphasis mine) maybe your worshiplessness is more about realizing just how much you have been forgiven. Worship is the most basic form of EXPRESSING love because we have been forgiven much, just like Jesus said.

GAINING A PASSION FOR WORSHIP

My hope for you is that you might gain a passion for singing through worship, or gain a passion for prayer through worship, or gain a passion for listening to God through worship, or whatever other form making much of God takes on for you. Be open to God, and however you do it make much of God in every aspect of your life! Don't be immature. Grow up! Don't be a spiritual weakling! Worship God in whatever form consistently, wholeheartedly, affectionately, bodily, authentically, enthusiastically, passionately, unreservedly, and zealously. Then you will grow up to maturity in Christ. “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:28). Blessings to you on your journey to a fuller maturity through worshipping a very worthy Christ. 

Paul's Discipleship Strategy

Paul's Discipleship strategy was very very intense.  That is why it was also so effective.  One of the many passages where he expresses that strategy is found in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-19 where he expresses his deep affection for the Thessalonian believers. Actually I am pretty sure that if Paul read the title of my blog it would seem so foreign to him to call this a 'strategy' because it was so personal to him. That is the label we put on it in the modern era. All our attempts to disciple people into the life of Christ are, and have failed. We have for the most part relegated the discipleship life to what we as a church do on Sundays.  This would never have been able to fit into the practice of Paul. He could not have even have come close to accomplishing what he describes in this passage on Sundays. I have heard from a mentor and friend that a very famous preacher said that "discipleship happens for him during his sermons on Sundays"! I also heard from this same mentor that a youth pastor had been 'let go' recently after 10 years at a large church, and was devastated.  He was devastated because youth ministry is the ministry in churches, in my experience, that comes closest to what Paul talks about here.  In youth ministry over time you get really close to people in your desire to minister to them.  This has been my experience at least.  As I read and exegeted Paul's experience or 'strategy', if we have to call it that, of discipleship it blew me away how little of those things I actually did while discipleing students for the past 8 years. But in doing only some of them that is why it was still that hard to leave my most recent church like I did two weeks ago. because when you show a deep affection, your job then as a pastor becomes so personal it is not a job anymore.  Please read the following passage here and my notes of the things that Paul implemented with the Thessalonian believers and ask, Does my discipleship strategy line up with his...

For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain, but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit; but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed-God is witness- nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost. But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short while-in person, not in spirit-were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. For we wanted to come to you-I, Paul, more than once-and yet Satan hindered us. For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? (1 Thessalonians 2:1-19 NASB)

Here is a list of the things he did while among the Thessalonians:

1. Suffering (for the Gospel)

2. Boldness (in the Gospel)

3. Opposition (He faced Opposition to the Gospel)

4. Exhortation (A deep pleading to obey the Gospel)

5. Approved (He was deeply called by God) 

6. Entrusted (He was entrusted with the gospel and He entrusted them also with the sacred Gospel)

7. Speak to please God not men (Paul always sought to please Jesus through reliance on Him)

8. Non-flattering speech (He did not seek to flatter the Thessalonians but was in their face)

9. Non-greedy (He sought to never be a burden on them)

10. Non-glory seeking (He sought only God and His glory)

11. Gentle (as a nursing mother)

12. Affectionate

13. Labor (Faithfully labored among them)

14. Hardship (Faced great hardship for the gospel and them)

15. Proclaimed (Fearlessly)

16. Devoutly (He was devout so they could see holiness in action)

17. Uprightly (not just a holy life but he avoided things that could be construed as not being right)

18. Blamelessly (and walked a blameless life in Christ in front of them)

19. Exhorting (as a father does his children: Notice he made it personal by seeing himself as their mother and father Just a bit personal huh?)

20. Encouraging (as a father does his children)

21. Imploring (as a father does his children)

22. Constantly thanked God when the word was received (I am terribly poor at this! He rejoiced)

23. Connected in the spirit (He saw distance from them as an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to connect them deeper in Christ!)

24. Eagerness to see each other (How many times are we so eager to see each other that you can hardly stand the time when you are not together)

25. Enduring suffering (He endured suffering for them to get a glimpse into the sufferings of Christ)

26. Disciples are hope, joy, and crown of exultation in the presence of Jesus at His coming (Do I really think of the students that I have discipled over the years as my crown of exultation (rejoicing) when I stand before Jesus on the day of his return?)

If we are honest we are probably fall woefully short of this standard of discipleship that Paul gives here. Let us repent of our inadequacy. Let us run to Jesus the perfect discipler and "fisher of men", and ask Him to make us desperate for Him and His way of affection, boldness, suffering, gentleness, Holiness, and rejoicing that He lived in, and now lives in for us!

Here are a few other passages in 1 Thessalonians that I gleaned on how Paul felt about the Thessalonians. You can peruse then and ask God to change our heart for people and become the "Fishers of Men" that Jesus would have us become!

• "For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor," (1 Thessalonians 4:3, 4 NASB)

• "For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words". (1 Thessalonians 4:3, 4, 14-18 NASB)

• "But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing." (1 Thessalonians 5:4-11 NASB)

• "But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." (1 Thessalonians 5:12-28 NASB)

Here is a quick video of what it might cost us to be a disciple and a disciplemaker of Christ.