This Must Be the Place

When Jesus dealt with people one-to-one, the person had a hard time evading the conversation. Think about the woman at the well we talked about a couple weeks ago. Jesus exposed her as being an adulteress. She had no where to hide from this conversation. She was exposed as a covenant breaker.

This conversation lead to her realizing what she had done, and her wanting to make things right. Her first question was about where to worship, still thinking that worship had to take place at a specific place and not something which can happen anywhere. Worship should not be an activity that is confined to a time, place, or form.

What about the temple?

If we need not worry about a place to worship, then why was there such intricacy drawn into the plans of the temple? Why do we come to a church building to worship?

We must realize that Jesus was telling the people that the old system, the old way of doing things was going to die. There would no longer be an elite priesthood who would carry out all parts of the service for individuals. The new way would talk of the priesthood of the believers.

The temple was supposed to help stimulate worship, that is all. It wasn’t supposed to be the only place of worship. The sacrifices and Sabbath system were all supposed to be symbolic of greater realities. The woman needed to realize this and so do we.

Living Temples

What was supposed to take the place of the Old Testament temple?

1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

God dwells within the believer which means we can worship God anywhere at anytime. The sphere of where worship can take place is endless if we are open to it.

In Hebrews, we are told of the offering Jesus made for us which sanctifies us once and for all. Then comes Hebrews 10:19.

Hebrews 10:19 ESV

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,

The reality is through the blood of Jesus Christ, God has given us the permission to enter into the Holy of Holies. Under the old covenant if such a thing were to happen, the person would be killed by God. Under the old way, the people worship God from a distance.

Under the New Covenant, we are allowed to be brought near to our Father. What Christ did for us on the cross was to offer us a brand new way we could worship and have communion with our Father God.

Hebrews 10:22 ESV

let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

James 4:8 ESV

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

So as we look at these scriptures and realize what has been opened to us through the New Covenant, we can worship God anywhere. However, there is another dimension to this as well.

A Worshiping Community

Hebrews 10:24–25 ESV

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We are to meet together. We are to encourage each other to love and to do good things. These activities are part of what constitute worship.

Just because we don’t have to worship God in a building doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for one. The New Covenant talks about a temple where God is worshipped.

Ephesians 2:19–22 ESV

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

God’s church, His people are the building which is being put together by Him. We are linked together. As believers, we are a building which has been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus being the cornerstone of the building. Can you picture this?

While we cannot ignore that we are each a temple of God where He dwells, we come together into a majestic temple where the Holy Spirit comes and meets with us all. There is so much to look at and appreciate here.

1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

This is for the individual. But look what was written earlier in the same book.

1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

The noun used for you in this section of scripture is actually plural. He was speaking to the church as a whole, not to us individually.

2 Corinthians 6:16 ESV

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

This scripture talks of how God will move among His people and dwell among them. There is no hidden meaning here or something we have to take a deeper look at. I think this is pretty plain and very well spoken.

1 Peter 2:5 ESV

you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Does this not describe an act of worship? Therefore, we are living stones which have been built, put together, by our God to offer our worship to Him. Wherever we are, we make up the Church. It isn’t the blocks and physical building. It is the living, physical, spiritual building made up of the believers of Christ. This is the New Covenant church.

Not Style, But Substance

We should get away from thinking of what happens during a service as worship. When we get down to it, worship isn’t about the music, the public prayer, the offering, the sermon, even the observance of our ordinances. The worship we are to be about takes place in the individual. It is what is to take place in our hearts when we are singing, when we are praying, when we are giving our offering, when we are listening to the preaching of God’s Word, when we are watching someone being baptized, when we are taking the Lord’s Supper. If we don’t feel anything in our hearts towards God when we are participating in these things, we are totally missing the point of why we are coming together as God’s body of believers.

This is why true worship can’t rely on gimmickry and emotion. These things will draw crowds, but it is a form of idolatry. These things will not only not bring us to true worship, but they will distract us from it.

The crucial factor in worship has nothing to do with the form of worship, but the heart of the believer when it comes to meet with God’s body of believers.

We must prepare ourselves for worship. We must live lives which express our worship daily. If we think we can get rid of our worldly way of living to come in and worship God during our one hour on one day of the week, we are sadly mistaken of what worship is and Who it is we are supposed to be bringing our praises to. Talk about putting God in a box.

Whether we are officially or unofficially members of a church, whoever we come together and worship with, we must maintain a consistant, healthy form of worship individually when we leave the body. If we don’t, it will adversely effect the rest of the body. It will be like a cancer in our physical bodies. What we do throughout the week while we are away from the rest of the church will have an effect on the rest of us, like it or not.

Worship is Giving

As we come together as a church, as the body of believers, if we have all demonstrated this act of worship throughout the week, we will come together and the result of the worship we have will overflow into others. If we went about our daily lives worshiping and praising our God each day, what would happen when we come together as a body of believers? Our praise, combined together, would be an overflowing of worship offered to our God. The results would be powerful as people around would see a difference in who we are and the difference of what God has done in our lives.

An important question to honestly ask yourself each time you are coming to worship, why are you coming? If it is for anything other than to offer your praises to God, then I would ask you to seriously pray about what your purpose is.

Why do you go to church?

Let that sink in for a few minutes.

Have you ever told someone you didn’t get anything out of service? The question may need to be asked what did you bring to the service. What did you bring to worship?

What did you give to God during the worship service? Did you come to get blessed, or did you come to glorify God? Bringing not only our monetary offering to God, but our spiritual offering to God is also what we are supposed to be about during worship. I think when we as a church can get beyond ourselves and realize what we are supposed to be doing during our worship time, we will see a radical difference in what we are able to do as a church. What is worship?

Symbiosis

When our daily, individual worship becomes what it should be, when we come together as His Body, we will feed off of each other in the worship we offer our Heavenly Father. Our fellowship together will be an encouragement to all. We must have the connectivity to worship God as we should. We need to have the encouragement of others. During the time we have been through, we have tried to do our best to meet each others needs where they are. But at some point, we need to be with each other. We need each other. God made us this way.

The fire and the embers.

I think our need to be together is becoming more evident as we take a look at the different things going on right now. We have had two events this past week where we saw between them 50 people in attendance. Our attendance at our services (notice I didn’t use the word worship) has been increasing each week. I think we as a church are yearning to get back together. That is a good thing. Let’s make sure when we are doing this, we are doing it to bring our offering of worship to our God. If we do this, we will spurn each other in the pursuit of love and doing good works. We will feed off of each other and the cycle will continue each week, and we will not only be a different people, we will be the church God wants us to be.