Kingdom, Week 6: God-Centered Worship

"Beware of practicing your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."   Matthew 6:1

Jesus has been showing that his disciples are to embody humility, mission-mindedness, and diligence with God's Word.  Now His focus shifts to their character as they worship God in their religious acts. 

God our Father 

Almost every religion recognizes the need for generous giving, prayer, and fasting.  And almost every religion recognizes that these are to be done towards the ends of seeking a reward from God.  But only Christianity has Jesus saying to do these for the ends of receiving a reward from your Father in heaven. 
The idea that God becomes a Father to us is intensely personal, as we each have an earthly dad, whether a good or bad one.  And much of our self-image and worldview is shaped by our dad and how connected we are (or were) to him.
Jesus says that in Him, God becomes a Father to us.  The Bible says when we receive God's Son Jesus, we're born of God (John1:12-13), and He adopts us into His family because our big brother Jesus paid for our adoption (Romans8:14, Galatians4:4-6).  God is loving, but He's also Just, and we, being sinners, while being continually blessed and provided for by Him, are under His condemnation for our sin.  But Jesus bore our sin and became sin for us.  In Him, God forgives us, adopts us, and makes us His children.  We're reborn through Jesus' resurrection into a new family.
When God is our Father, our worship of Him is soaked in thanksgiving, because He's lavished on us grace upon grace in Christ.  "Whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Colossians3:17), for "this is God's will for you, that you'd pray without ceasing, giving thanks in all circumstances" (1Thessalonians5:17). 

Every Blessing

If we're in Christ, God has blessed us with every blessing that can ever be imagined, even though we don't see it in all of it's fullness yet (see Ephesians1:3, 1Peter1:7-9).  Surely God could never withhold anything from us if it's already ours, which is Paul's point in Romans8:33-39.  So this saturates our prayers and acts of service: we know God has blessed us, is blessing us, and will continue to.  So we continue coming to Him in prayer and thanksgiving.

But if we don't think we're going to receive blessing from God, we'll begin to seek blessing from others ("Scott, I love that song, thanks for singing it"; "excellent message..you nailed it!"; "oh you're fasting..wow, you're really committed!"). 
Jesus says that if this praise from others is our motive, it, in and of itself, is the only reward we'll receive (6:2, 4, 16).  This is because we're not approaching God as a Father who accepts us on Christ's basis.  Since we're not doing it thankfully in Him, we're trying to achieve acceptance from others, and so we're worshiping them but not Him.  In much the same way, many of us don't care as much about others' opinions of us, but we care deeply about our own opinion of ourselves.  Since men naturally feel more godly and pious when they do worshipful things, this gives us assurance.  But in this, we're worshiping us but not Him.  Either way is giving honor and glory to created things over the Creator, and is a direct breakage of Commandment #2. 

Fake Worship

Jesus says that many will come to Him with claims of intimacy, crying out "Lord Lord!", but He will say to depart, because He doesn't know them, to which they'll respond, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" (Matt7:21-23).  These are people who are expecting that God will accept them because they've done religious service like what's described here in chapter 6.  But profession and religious service isn't enough.  Truly being God's son or daughter is what's required.  This is why 7:21 said that it's not those who claim "Lord Lord", but those who "do the will of the Father", which Jesus later defined as sitting at His feet listening, calling those who do it His "brother and sister and mother" (see Matt12:46-50).  Ah! And we're back to needing to be Jesus' family--sons and daughters of the most high God.

How do you worship?  Do you worship God as a Father who has loved you enough to bury your sins through Jesus' cross?  Do you worship Him as a child who can only say thanks and enjoy spending time with Dad?  Or are you still performing for others, hoping for their approval?  Or worse, are you performing for God, hoping for His approval, when Jesus already said, "It's finished"?

Honesty

One can't "fake" worship with God--He sees our hearts (1Samuel16:7, John2:24-25); so we need to come honestly when we're giving, praying, or fasting.  There will be times when we won't "feel it", as well as times when we'll be angry with God even.  But there is never a time when God isn't worth it, nor is there ever a time when we don't need to be seeking Him and disciplining ourselves.  That's what it means to be a disciple.
This is why the truth that God is our Father in Christ is so important to remember.  If we have struggles, temptations, questions, and emotions, we can come to Him as a child comes to their father.  In Christ, God's not going to love us any less, because His acceptance of us is based on the performance of Jesus on our behalf, not on our own.
And so this should spur us on to not view our worship as a performance, but as a "sacrifice of praise, holy and pleasing to the Lord".

Kingdom, week 5: Careful With God's Word

Jesus spoke in Matthew 5:21-48 of the need to tremble before God's Word, never assuming you're doing a "good enough" job of keeping it that He'd consider you righteous.  "Be perfect, as your Father is perfect" is the concise summation in 5:48.  Implied is the need to continue to approach the Word of God and listen to it in order to bring about this end.  Jesus perfectly embodied this, in that He always quoted the Old Testament as authoritatively God's spoken Word.
This falls to the floor among many believers today.  Because the Word of God is being doubted, questioned, debated, and tossed around like it's an awards show acceptance speech, the idea of "being perfect as your Father is perfect" isn't popular.

But among those who actually HAVE God as their Father (and it's not everyone, but only those who have received Jesus, God's Son, as Lord; see John 1:11-13), this is a welcome invitation because they love the Word of God.  We trust that it tells the truth.  We don't look at it as a scientific textbook when it comes to the details of physics and things like that, but we consider that if it ever says something that's directly contrary to any other truth claim being postured in the world, the Bible wins, because the God who created wrote it.

We shouldn't think God's Word can be put on the same plain as "reason, tradition, and experience", as though it's worthy of being subjected to the mind of fallen people and the history of a fallen world (and if you do adhere to the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral, which has these three with Scripture as the top-left first point, you might disagree that here Scripture is made equal with the others; but practically, it is made equal with the rest, because the nature of a quadrilateral is that all the points are equally necessary to make the quadrilateral, even if some of the angles are wider than others).  On the contrary, obedience to Jesus' command to be careful with God's Word places the Word of God as the sun around which everything else (reason, tradition, experience, etc.) orbits.
Jesus' people believe that God has spoken, and all he speaks is right.  "I the Lord speak the truth" (Isaiah 45:19).  They view every word found in the Bible as authoritative, because a) Jesus and Moses both said that man lives by every Word that comes from God's mouth (see Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4), and b) Paul said that all Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16).
Therefore, we should shut our mouths if we are hasty to utter a word before God, if we aren't first listening to God's Word to us.

Pharisaism had fallen into a state of apostasy, upholding with great care religious acts that made the people look like they were worshiping, while their diligence and care with God's Word spoke something different.  Jesus spoke this way in His Sermon on the Mount to show that God requires perfection, because He is perfect.  You can imagine that this would thunder through the peoples' hearts like a lightning bolt when they heard it.  But this is how Jesus the Living Word spoke--He spoke the truth, and truth pierces like the double-edged sword the Word of God is. 
If you've never been led to the foot of the cross and seen your need for the perfect sacrifice of the perfect God-man, Jesus, His teaching that one must be perfect should do the trick (and yet, for most, it won't).  But if you have been led there, and Jesus is your righteousness before a holy God, Jesus' teaching here should make you want to dig into the Word of God and seek a deeper discipleship and faithfulness.  Disciples are taught to obey "all that Jesus commanded" (Matt28:19), always "let(ting) the Word of Christ dwell in (them) richly" (Colossians 3:16). 

The fact is, you're building your life on some kind of foundation, assuming that it's the right one.  You hope that the foundation will keep your house standing during any storm the future might hold.  What a fearful task, to find the truth and build on it perfectly!

But Jesus offers an easier yoke--one that says "come and learn from me, and I will give you rest" (Matt11:28-29), and "if you build your life on my Words, you will stand firm" (see Matt7:24-27).
His Gospel is the way to be freed from the enslavement to sin and the world that would draw you away from His Word.  Beginning with understanding that you're a sinner and Jesus is the Savior who invites you to come as you are to be changed into a new creation by His grace and power, you're sure to make it, because He is sure to deliver.  His cross pays the ransom for sin that ensnares and His resurrection sets free those who have died with Him.
His Word promises it's true.  "This is the one to whom I will look--he who is humble and contrite in heart, and trembles at my Word" (Isaiah 66:2).