Worship is... (Part 6)

Worship is personal.

In the Gospels, there is an event that happens shortly before Jesus' death. He is at the home of a Pharisee eating dinner with his friends and a woman enters the house. She lets down her hair, weeps on Jesus' feet, and dries them with her tears. We read this from our perspective today and don't understand the intensely intimate nature of what she did.

She entered a gathering of men - This was not done in that culture.

She let down her hair in front of the men - She might as well have taken off her clothes.

She touched a Rabbi - Good women didn't touch men outside their immediate family.

She was, or at least had been, a prostitute. We have no idea what Jesus had done for her because the passage doesn't say... but it must have been something life-altering. She didn't care about what others thought. She was laser locked on Jesus. She was going to pour out this offering of worship to Him.

Worship is personal.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to attend Urbana '89. I had never attended anything quite like it. At the time, we were attending a Charismatic Church in Harrisburg, and I believed in all of it. However, I had never gotten into the hand-raising aspects of worship. I was afraid of what other people thought of me. Now here I was in a stadium with many thousands of other people. I thought, "No one knows me here. I'm going to do it. I'm going to raise my hands!" I closed my eyes and slowly, timidly stuck them in the air. Then I snuck a peek around. To my surprise, no one was looking at me! They didn't care because they were worshipping God themselves. It was that day that I realized that it doesn't really matter what other people think. My worship is my sacrifice to God.

There is an addendum to that, though. Many times people think that their personal worship should be normative for everyone. The truth is that different people worship Christ in different ways. My way is no better, or worse than any other. It's just mine. There are things that are more meaningful to me than to others. For instance, my favorite version of "Break Every Chain" is from this album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUU-SuSJUrM&t=14s. It's at 47:50. The whole album is amazing, but I bought the album for this one version of this song. It connects me to God's presence more than just about anything else, mostly because God brought it into our lives at one of our lowest points, and it never fails to remind me of God's faithfulness. I will probably never do it in a church because it's personal to me.

In 2020-2021, I had the opportunity to serve in Kuwait. I got to participate in four services every Sunday. I led the choir for the Catholic Mass at 9:00, I was on the preaching rotation and led the music team for the Contemporary service at 11:00, I was on the preaching rotation and periodically helped with music for the Gospel service at 2:00, and I was on the preaching rotation and helped with music for the Traditional Protestant service at 6:00. I experienced the presence of God at all of them. Do you know why? Because I chose to... because...

Worship is personal.

May you choose the same.

Songs for Sunday

More Than Conquerors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p8_4NbrcKA

Good Good Father

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak0OoFBw3c

Still God, Still Good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMBKUz12sEU

All Creatures of our God and King

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSFK7UiH5Us

Overcome