CORE CONVICTION 1 | Jesus Treasuring
CORE CONVICTION 2 | His-Story Honoring
CORE CONVICTION 3 | Disciple Making
CORE CONVICTION 4 | People Loving
CORE CONVICTION 5 | Diversity Celebrating
CORE CONVICTION 6 | Praying Constantly
If we treasure Jesus, honor His story, obey Him and make disciples, love our neighbors generously and sacrificially, seek to reach every area and ethnicity of our city, and enjoy conversation with God regularly, then we won't have to prepare ourselves for worship, or sing a song to worship, or go to a service of worship in a building once a week to feel good about our worship quota.
Instead, all of life will become worship service.
Scotty Smith's statement that "what we do on a Sabbath day is only one of many services of worship, but Jesus intended that all of life should be worship service" continues to humble me and instruct me when I try to separate the spheres of life into sacred and secular. Jesus never did. He loved God the Father and walked with God the Spirit whether He was getting baptized, reading the Scriptures in a synagogue, eating with a tax collector, saving a woman caught in adultery, feeding thousands, comforting a prostitute, or washing His disciples feet. Every moment, Jesus brought together the divine and the humane in the wondrous harmony of the Incarnation. He was always worshiping in the midst of others as well as when He was alone.
The Scriptures describe the church as Jesus' body. We are to continue in His lifestyle, going to places He would go and being with those He would spend time with – preaching and teaching repentance in His name and declaring that His kingdom is coming – in both our words and our actions. One-on-one and in groups. In our homes and in our workplaces. In the park or in a restaurant.
The power of the good news that Jesus is King can infiltrate every area of life because His gospel of grace has no boundaries.
His grace is available all the time and to anyone who is willing to receive it – for the single mom who is exhausted with her two kids under three and is dreading the next who is on the way; for the high school student who is looking for acceptance in all the wrong places and is trying everything in order to feel like he is liked; for the middle-aged man who hates his job, drinks to escape, and goes into debt to keep meeting his wife's and kids' demands.
And when His grace is experienced in our greatest highs and deepest lows in every moment of life – then He can and will be worshiped in every area of life as we express back to Him our gratitude and adoration for loving us even when we are sinners.
And when we gladly give our lives to Him, we will live out what Paul instructed Christians in Rome to do when he said:
"And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect...Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other."
– Saint Paul (Romans 12:1-5)
We still need a change in our thinking, each and every day. Because of all He has done for us, He deserves more than services of worship attendance or moments we find convenient to give Him credit. If we truly want to worship Him, we will offer all we are and all we have to Him. We belong to Him. And we belong to each other. This will take sacrifice. But it will provide a living and holy light that reveals more of God in us and with us.
A nearly four hundred year old confession of the Christian faith poses this question: What is the chief end of men and women?
The answer: To enjoy God and worship Him forever.
Within and without Emmaus City, we want to see people knowing and enjoying God and His grace fully. We want them to know and enjoy that forgiveness for every sin is possible and complete in God the Son no matter who they or what they have done. We want them to know and enjoy that they do not have to prove themselves, but can rest in the love of God the Father who adopts them into His family. We want them to know and enjoy whole satisfaction in a holy God, filled by His Spirit, so they don't have to tirelessly and repeatedly search for partial satisfactions in the next new thing or the million old things that could never fully satisfy.
And when we embody what the body of Christ is supposed to share and show with each other, we will be worshiping wherever we are and in whatever we're doing. So when we get to the service of worship on a Sabbath day, it will be a continuation of the services
of worship that have come before and will continue after.
– Sully
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