By the time you’re reading this blog post, I hope you have already heard of our new vision emphasis called “Be, Know, Do.” Each of the three components of our mission statement (“Connecting with God, Connecting with Others, Connecting Others with God”) will have a “Be, Know, Do” attached to it. The goal is to provide us with a picture of what a true follower of Christ looks like. In other words, when it comes to “connecting with God,” what should a Christ follower be, what should he/she know, and what should he/she do. And the same is true with the other statements in our mission.
Connecting with God: BE a worshiper of Christ
If you were to try to explain to someone what a true follower of Christ looks like, you would need to start with the concept of who the Christian is. In other words, the “Be” part of being a Christian. To describe a Christian, we start with saying a “Christian IS _________.” That’s the starting point. Once this has been defined, then the KNOW and DO parts of a Christian’s life can be understood.
So, the first thing a Christian should be known as is a worshiper of Christ. That’s who you are. You’re not just to do the act of worship; you are to be a worshiper. Worship is our response to who God is.
So what should our proper response be?
Warren Wiersbe said, “Worship is the believers response of all that he is – mind, emotion, will and body – to all that God is and says and does. This response has a mystical side in subjective experience, and it’s practical side in objective obedience to God’s revealed truth. It is a loving response that is balanced by the fear of the Lord, and it is a deepening response as the believer comes to know God better.”
In John 4:24, Jesus said, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” So a worshiper responds to God’s glory in two primary ways: by worshiping in the right spirit and in the right standard.
It is very possible to worship out of duty, but without love. And it’s also very possible to worship with the right doctrine, but without love. In order to properly worship God, we worship in both spirit and in truth. That means the “subjective” part of worship is sincere. That means that we worship out of a pure heart and true integrity. And worship also involves the “objective” part, which is responding to who God is…the one, true God.
We can’t just be sincere in our worship. We must have the right standard of worship.
Church, I want to remind all of us that the first image of a disciple is that we are a worshiper of Christ. May our lives reflect worship, which is our response to who God is and what He has done. May we be known as true worshipers…those who worship in spirit and in truth.