Sunday Re Cap (16th March 2008)

What and Where is True Worship?
by Tom Sparks

John 4:20-24 God is most looking for in our worship is a life poured out in personal sacrifice to Him. Paul, in Romans 12:1,2 makes the connections perfectly clear, and his optimism about such sacrifice is unmistakable.

When we look at sacrifice we are tempted to think negatively about it, but because of His nature we can have confidence that He only asks us to bring those things that hinder His life within us.

John 12:24-26 promises us that if we are willing to surrender our lives fully to the processes of God within us we will see a great harvest of life come from it.

God is not looking for partial surrender or partial sacrifice. Jesus Christ is the first lamb in history that became a “Living Sacrifice.” Always in the past the sacrificial lamb was a “Dead Sacrifice.” But through the power of resurrection life in the Spirit, Jesus rose from the dead, conquered death and hell, and released the abundance of life from such death. As we enter into the death He takes us through we too become “living sacrifices.”

We are called to a heavenly worship…one that is not directly tied to this earth or any earthly system of religion. All too often we expect Churches on this earth to provide for us what only God in the Spirit can provide. Our expectations tend to drive pastors to exhaustion, while trying to satisfy the demands of their congregations. The Father calls us into the Spirit realm, tells us He is seeking those who will worship/sacrifice their lives “In Spirit,” and “In Truth,” and thus find their way into a realm where true life can open.

Churches on earth can become helpful portals into this experience, but Jesus never referenced Churches having the responsibility for providing this for His people. As we see this happen, then we look less expectationally to institutions on earth to provide our spiritual life, and instead we bring spiritual life into them to cause growth in the body of Christ. We transmit His life from His realm into the natural realm and thus cover the earth with His knowledge and glory – Habakkuk 2:14 and Isaiah 11:9 .

In John 14:2, 4-7, 11, and 16-17 we saw that the place God is preparing for us is the same place the writer of Hebrews teaches us of in Hebrews 3:1-6. This place is “The House of God,” and the body of Christ, In Christ, is that “Place.” The house of God has the potential of being the place we meet Christ, experience His power and life, and transmit that life to others. We are not to look to some distant “next life” experience of heavenly mansions or rooms in the Father’s house, nor do we look to a building on earth for this house. Everything Jesus was referring to here would be fulfilled as He sent His Spirit to create the House of God on earth in the lives of His saints.

The body of Christ is “The Place” He was referring to. It is here, in Christ, that we experience His life. In Luke 17:20 Jesus taught the Kingdom of God was forming within them and would expand into all the world here and now. It would not manifest in some earth bound ruling and reigning of some earthly Messianic Monarch, but would be manifested in the lives of each of His subjects as the Spirit of Christ came to dwell in and through them.

As we “Shachah,” (Hebrew) and “Proskuneo,” (Greek), I.e. prostrate ourselves before the Lord, in lives of sacrifice and service to Jesus, we will experience the life and power of His kingdom.