First purpose of the Church: Worship
Worship can happen only in the daily sacrifice of ourselves to God
by The Rev. Ajung Sojwal

Today we start our Preaching series on the purpose of the Church. For five weeks we will study together what it means to be a Church. Now, the five purposes I have chosen are by no means all that there are for the Church to aspire for. In fact, these are very broad divisions, my hope is that you will spend some time in the coming weeks to think, meditate and pray over what all these purposes mean to you personally in a much deeper way.

So we begin today by looking at the first and most important purpose of the Church, which is to worship our Lord and God. One can say that every other purpose of the church is in fact an expression of our worship in some way or the other. And if we believe that worshipping God begins and ends here in this sanctuary on Sundays, I am afraid we have completely misunderstood what it means to be in relationship with God.

In our Gospel reading the Samaritan woman had a similar misconception about worship. She thought that worship had to do with a physical place. She wanted to know from Jesus whether Mt. Gerizim or Jerusalem was the right place to worship God. To which Jesus replies that the true worshipper will worship the Father in spirit and truth. In other words, worship is not about doing particular things, in a particular manner, in a particular place. Worship is about being who you are. Jesus says to the woman that God is Spirit, and that those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Worship is about coming together with and into the presence of God; it is about a relationship. In order for us to have a meaningful, recognizable relationship, we need to have some common ground. For instance, you cannot have a relationship with someone with whom you share no understandable language, or you cannot have a relationship with a dog, or a tiger, or a tree. Of course, you may love your pet, you may love having beautiful plants in your home, but it is not the same as sharing, enjoying and investing in a meaningful relationship with another person with whom you share language, culture, values and many other things.

Right in the beginning of the creation story, it says that God created us in His image and so we are not only physical beings, but also we are spiritual and moral beings. We are beings that came to life with the breath of God Himself.

True worship therefore has to do with being, or simply put it has to do with recognizing where our source of breath or life comes from. That is why Jesus says worship has to be in spirit and in truth. The Spirit that God gave us is not something that floats around between heaven and earth. Spirit is what gives us life; it is the breath of God in us which tells us that we are more than just physical bodies. That is why when God takes away our spirit, even our physical bodies stop functioning and we die.
The other thing about true worship is the nature of it being in truth. God is the only truth, and if at any time we feel that understanding the truth of God is beyond our grasp, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. In other words, in Jesus we find God’s truth. And the truth that Jesus shows us is that God our Father alone is our source of life and therefore worthy of worship. Money is not our source of life, high social status is not our source of life, worldly knowledge is not our source of life, and not even the most advanced medicine can be defined as our source of life. If we really understood and believed the truth that God alone is our source of life, we would automatically desire to spend all our time in the presence of God, and in the service and concerns of God. In the children’s story of King Midas, the king has a deep love for gold. He thinks and believes that having enough gold would ultimately fulfill everything he needed in life. He has a roomful of gold and most of his time he spends counting the gold he has in that room. And the more he spends time counting his gold the more gold he desires to have. One day a fairy appears to him and tells him to ask for one wish. In his desire to have more gold, king Midas asks that everything he touches be turned to gold. His wish is granted. The chair he sits on turns to gold, the apple he picks to eat turns to gold, the glass of water he grabs to drink turns to gold, and it goes on. Sometime in his excitement of seeing all the gold, his only daughter comes running to hug him, and she also turns into a statue of gold. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Worship is not about doing or saying the right things. Worship comes from deep within our hearts, the seat of all our desires. We automatically worship what we desire most. But unlike king Midas’ desire for gold which robbed him of everything that signified life, our God is the true Life and our desire and worship of Him can bring for us only life.

We have designated places of worship and a certain form of worship in our gatherings, not because God needs from us such things. We have them because we need a place of worship to remind us of just how desperately we need God and each other to live that holy and worshipful life. We stand, we sing, we pray, we bring our offerings and we hear from Scripture in a specific place of worship because we are prone to forget that God is truly our source of life. At least in this sanctuary we can be reminded that we are made in the image of God, that we carry with us God’s own Holy breath. That is the reason why Paul says to the Romans, “brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Paul understood that worship has to do with our very life, and that is why we cannot set aside only Sundays in this sanctuary to worship God. Our bodies, the very nature of who we are, what we think, say and do must reflect our worship of God without whom we cannot live. And the more time we spend with God, the more we will begin to understand what it means to be holy and acceptable to God.

The other aspect about being made in the image of God is the whole aspect of communion. God did not say “I” will make man and woman in my image. God said, “let us make man in our image.” Every Sunday we affirm that we believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, this of course is the mystery of one God in the Trinity. But the message within our confession is clear, God is about a communion. God is realized and glorified in community like nowhere else. Everything about our God has to do with relationships and communion and that is the reason why we need to gather together as the people of God to experience and worship God more fully. The worship that comes out from deep within us has to be expressed in visible ways. And that visible expression and symbols of worship happen within our singing, in our prayers, in the sharing of God’s word, at the Lord’s Table, as well as in our relationships with each other and with the world around us. Everything about our life must be about worshipping God if we truly believe that God is the very source of our life. We will want our lives to be about worshipping God if we truly love Him with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our strength, and with all our mind.

We have a new friend who is going to be baptized at the end of this month in my husband’s church. Now you might say, baptisms come and go. What is extraordinary about our friends’ story is that she was born and brought up in a conservative Muslim country in a conservative Muslim family. And she is also a very well known singer, especially in the Islamic communities of the world. She tells us that she cannot wait to go to church on Sundays; she goes for three bible studies during the week, and is constantly asking to get involved in the many ministries of the church. She just cannot get enough of her new found meaning of life in Jesus Christ. But the extraordinary thing about her story is not even her conversion from Islam. The extraordinary thing about her story is that because she is such a well known Muslim singer, there is a very high chance that a Fatwa or a death sentence will be issued against her by the Islamic religious authority in her country the moment she goes public about her new found faith. But she tells us that she is convicted in the knowledge that Jesus Christ is her Lord and Savior and there cannot be any other course but to worship Him as Lord, even at the possibility of death. Our friend has in fact found true life in Jesus.

I urge you to examine your hearts and see where you invest your time and energy in. what is your deepest desire? What do you think gives meaning for you in life? What does coming to church Sunday after Sunday mean to you? How much do you think your life reflects the glorious light and the eternal love of God that has been given so generously to us? Like Apostle Paul, I appeal to you, my dear brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Amen