It’s A Good Thing We’re Not Worshipping You

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”-2 Timothy 4:3-4

I think many in the Christendom today are arrogant,  selfish and self-centered. Seriously. We Church shop, looking for the music we like, the preaching we like, aesthetics (building décor) that we find pleasing, and we establish worship AROUND God, but, in all honesty, create a self-help, self-worshipping culture. We abandon sound doctrine and sound teaching for what makes us feel good. We use freedom in Christ to, even if we’re theologically correct, to brow beat and demean someone who is a brother in Christ who has a non-essential opinion different than ours, and assert our intellectual superiority as often as we can. In some congregations, if the preacher hurt your feelings or told you no, vote him out! Beloved, this is unstable. This is carnal. This is arrogant self-worship. This is idolatry.

Those who followed Christ are called to be bold, but humble. We’re called to renew our minds, not emulate the world. In the age of church-hopping church shoppers, I find myself, when given a criticism that has nothing to do with a theological or doctrinal position (“the preacher seems more like a Youth Minister, we don’t like the music, how people dress, I’m not being fed”) saying “Thank God, because we were worshipping Him and not you.” It’s time for us to put down petty checklists. It’s time for us to stop worshiping God with our lips and with those same lips lighting our brothers and sisters who are made in His image on fire. It’s time to set aside petty traditions and seek to follow Christ through the Scriptures and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s time to humble ourselves, and the One who died for us.

James 1:19-27

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.- 

1 Peter 3:8-27

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For

“Whoever desires to love life

and see good days,

let him keep his tongue from evil

and his lips from speaking deceit;

let him turn away from evil and do good;

let him seek peace and pursue it.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,

and his ears are open to their prayer.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.