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‘…when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.’ Matthew 6:6

The above words of Jesus are important when it comes to worship. We have seen in this series that one form of worship is prayer, providing we do that in spirit and truth, so I think it is fair to allow ourselves to apply his words here to other forms of worship where appropriate. The key truth we have identified so far is that worship is a lifestyle involving our hearts rather than simply a list of actions and as a result we can conclude that all of worship is profoundly personal. Whether my neighbour is woken up every morning to the sound of me singing along to the latest live album at the top of my voice, or whether no-one ever hears anything because I am constantly praying inside my head what really matters is that my spirit is fully engaged.

That being said we must logically conclude from this line of thinking that our judgment of what ‘good’ worship is can only be based on one thing: our own experience in light of the Word of God. In other words, if we arrive at a church meeting on a Sunday and the music begins it is entirely down to us whether or not we experience ‘good’ worship. If we have a ‘bad’ worship experience it is due to the fact that our spirits are not fully engaged. Therefore blaming others for having a detrimental effect on our worship or judging others’ efforts at worship should never come into play. It is true that certain environments do not necessarily make it easy to worship, but it is at these times that we must return to our definition from a few weeks ago. I will attempt to explain what I mean through the use of some possibly all too familiar situations:

Hannah has recently joined a new church and does not know any of the songs that the new church sings. She finds it difficult to sing along but makes a conscious decision to listen to and dwell on the words of the songs. An onlooker sees her merely standing there but she is truly worshipping God.

Bob is a committed older member of a church and has noticed that the band is too loud for him one Sunday. He could storm out and complain as others are dong but he makes a conscious decision to stand just outside the room and sing along with all his heart anyway. He is truly worshipping God, perhaps to a greater extent to those in the main room.

Paul is a single man in his thirties and can only see temptation from ladies everywhere. He could choose to give in and access pornography on his home computer but rather confesses to a friend and stores his PC at his house to remove that area of temptation.

Sacrifice

We can see from the above examples that all of worship is about sacrifice. The members of the congregation who know the songs, like the style and are comfortable with the volume can easily sing along. A man who is not easily tempted sexually will be able to confidently own a home PC without being afraid as to where his internet browser may end up. The truth is that the examples above have all been given an opportunity to worship God to a greater extent than many other Christians, perhaps many of us. It is logical therefore to conclude that worship is ultimately a personal experience. The only one who knows the sacrifice you are making is you; your boss does not know and your friends do not know.

Making ourselves unhappy

It sounds at the moment like the only way to truly worship God is to give up something we really want to do and replace it with something harder. This is intentional and is true to some extent, but is a little extreme. We could take what was said above and draw the conclusion that showing up for a Sunday meeting and enjoying oneself is not worshipping because that seems too easy, but I do not think this is true. When we become Christians we are ‘born again’ and are given ‘a new heart’ with new desires. When I first became a Christian I was so filled with joy as a result of the grace I had received that all I wanted to do was give my time to God – spending six hours in a prayer meeting held more joy for me than spending six hours watching The Lord of the Rings film trilogy back-to-back, however amazing that would be. And it is from this that we return to our definition. My joy was caused partly by my actions in that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Bible and going to prayer meetings, but mainly it was caused simply by a knowledge of the grace I had received from the Father…and it is this knowledge which inspires worship, as we saw in Jesus’ words.

When the psalmist wrote ‘I delight to do your will, O my God’ this was not because he got a kick out of following the rules but because his entire being was so in line with God’s will that he only wanted what God wanted; his joy was founded on the joy of God. It is likely that it would have been easier for him not to do God’s will, but ultimately that would not have brought him joy. Again we come back to this point then: true sacrifice will only be known by us. We may want to give sacrificially but we know that ‘God loves a cheerful giver’ – where is the balance between being cheerful enough that we are still ‘cheerful’ but not so cheerful that we do not feel we have sacrificed? The only one who can judge that is ourselves, and when it comes down to it we can often find that making considerable sacrifices carries with it great joy! John Piper has written a wonderful chapter on this subject entitled 'Worship' in his incredible book, Desiring God. It's available for free here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/1594_Desiring_God/

Does personal mean private?

A question begs to be asked: while all worship is entirely personal, is it all private? There is an important difference, and the answer, as it so often seems to be, is ‘it depends’. Certain aspects of worship should be private. It does not take too long to identify Bible passages exhorting us not to draw attention to the sacrifices we make.
Jesus calls those who fast in public ‘hypocrites’ and, in fact, tells his disciples to anoint their heads and wash their faces ‘that [their] fasting may not be seen by others’ .
Similarly we saw from the quote at the beginning of this week's article that Jesus wants his disciples to pray privately. He is not looking for anyone to draw attention to their pious acts of worship and points out that ‘they have received their reward’. In contrast those who pray in private will be rewarded by the Father.

That said I would challenge you to try and find a Christian who does everything alone in the New Testament - John Wesley once said 'there is no such thing as a solitary Christian' and I would agree; we have been created for a community, and therefore are required to bring our personal worship into the public forum. Does that mean proudly showing everyone your fat cheque as it slides into the offering pot? Clearly not, but I would say it does mean getting into small community groups in which we can disciple and be accountable to one another - for more information check out this free resource: http://theresurgence.com/fightclubs/

Conclusion

We have seen that all worship in all forms is entirely personal due to the fact that worship is sacrifice, and we can never know the true extent of others’ sacrifices. This does not necessarily mean that worship will frustrate, annoy, or sadden us, because our biggest joy should be to bring glory to God in view of the gift of eternal life that is ours in Christ Jesus.

"'Christ in You...'" from Dale Krebbs

Storms Of Life