Jesus’ Call: “Come and Die… and find true life in forsaking everything…”

Our Culture’s Call: “Come and Get… and find Health, Wealth… whatever your heart lusts for!”

Did Christ call you to the path of your wildest dreams coming true?

Did Christ call you to the path of health and wealth and romance?

These are the things we dream of, right?

If he wanted to attract a lot of people, you would have thought THIS is what he would have offered, right?

But instead he say’s these words: “If you want to follow me, deny yourself… take up your cross, and follow me…whosoever does not hate his own life cannot be my disciple.”

I think one of the reasons this sounds so foreign to us is because it goes against our cultural norms (individualism, consumerism, materialism…)

In fact, I think when most of us come to Christ in this culture, it is BECAUSE OF Radical Self-Interest…

We don’t come to die, we come to live!

Some of us come to God to get hope for our Eternal Destination

We look at eternity: Heaven & Hell… which one sounds better?

Some of us want a better life now… Maybe it’s the false health and wealth gospel OR maybe you are looking for Freedom from the brokenness we’ve experienced when we couldn’t help ourselves… addictions, sorrows, things that had been done against us… and we believe Christian Morality will help us achieve freedom from those things…

Some of us want to Make a Difference in the world, and Christianity is the perfect vehicle to accomplish our activist plans…

Some of us just grew up in it and don’t know any different, so we settle into a version of Christianity that fits us because we know there is some truth in there. So we find a church that reflects our values and settle in until something messes with us (offended at a person or teaching or they stop doing my favorite light show during the morning concert…), then we hop around until we find another church that fits our consumer hearts

The church has said for a long time, “Come get saved for your reasons, then join a church that fits your personality and desires (music-style, teaching-style, etc…), and then try to participate in mission as you can… That’s the key to the Christian life: you’ll be feeding some homeless people, behaving better, and know you’re going to heaven when you die”

The problem is we end up leading unfulfilling lives!

Mission becomes some dry activity squeezed into our free time…

Discipleship becomes a list of Meetings we attend and adding more Activities into our already saturated lives…

Freedom becomes a ball of guilt-ridden feelings we walk around under because we can’t break our sinful habits and we can’t seem to find the balance we seek, and we can’t do enough to make a dent in world poverty…

So… after a while, we find ourselves wanting to plop down Indian-style in the middle of the floor and give up, because our Fuel is Gone & we are Burnt Out and This Call is not all it was cracked up to be…

Jesus wants to free you today from that self-serving, unfulfilling, religious cycle!

Jesus wants to Break the chains of your the guilt, and consumerstic lie you’ve bought into today!

He wants to Set Loose the Pharisees and Sadducees and Zealots from their self-fulfilling dreams… the idols they have put their hope in… idols they are serving in the name of God

Many of us come to Christ to gain our lives…

Jesus calls us to lose our lives…to die.


Although my understanding of worship continued to evolve and mature, the basic function of my heart remained the same. I was the same self-seeking slob...

I had stopped chasing an experience. I was learning to content myself with God as He chose to reveal himself to me. But something was still way off. My heart still wanted to get something... to earn something... and worship was just becoming a new way to accomplish this. One more work. One more merit badge on my vest of self-righteousness. One more way to get something from the God who was, Himself, quickly becoming the means to something I wanted: my salvation, joy, self-image, happy life. He was the means to all the things my heart really desired... not an end in Himself. I was serving God for His gifts, not for Him. It took the loving and jarring truth of the gospel to set me free from the self-righteous, self-seeking ideology that held my heart captive.

See, for the longest time in my walk I understood the gospel cognitively, but it had never truly invaded my heart and soul in the way it was about to...

It started with a few gracious questions the Holy Spirit led me to ask myself as I studied. If I was walking with God, why was I so unhappy? Why was worship so exhausting? Where was this "rest" the Scriptures promised? Where was the joy? I was looking to God for these things He had promised and I wasn't getting them! It seemed like the more I tried to honor Him and remove my heart's false hope from other things... the more I tried to make Him the center... the more exhausted I was becoming. I was irritable. I was unhappy! I was getting burned out! There had to be something wrong!

I thank God for graciously leading me to the end... the end of my works-based theology (that wasn't working)... the end of my trying to either impress or manipulate God into giving me what I wanted... the end of myself.

I wandered into a church-planter's meeting a year or so into planting Anchor Gaslamp in Downtown San Diego. I was tired. Dead-tired. Ministry wasn't fulfilling me like I thought it would. I needed new ideas. I needed to be pumped up and inspired. I needed a better model for planting churches. Looking back I think God had different ideas...

The speaker got up and began preaching about the cross... at first all I felt was frustration. This was not what I had signed up for. Didn't he know this was a church-planter's conference and that we all knew the gospel! But as I listened, the frustration quickly gave way to interest, then godly-sorrow, then repentance as I heard the gospel in a whole new way! It wasn't a different gospel than the one I had grown up with, but this time it spoke to me at a different level... to my heart... and it challenged me to examine all of my life, not just my eternal destination, in light of the gospel!

As He began to talk about God's holiness, comparing it to our brokenness and self-centeredness, I felt like God was holding up a mirror that showed me the cancerous core of evil and destructive ways within my own heart. As I saw myself in light of a holy and gracious God, I shriveled back in vehement disgust of my own condition! I knew I was broken before that day, but I had never really taken the time to examine my own sinfulness... My fragile sense of self-worth could not have handled it because my sense of self-worth was built on my accomplishments (which is why I had chosen the path of ministry in the first place). I had always known that I was not perfect, but I would rationalize it: "We are all imperfect, so that's alright... no need to dwell on it. God forgives us all because of Christ... he has to, so now let's move on to important stuff like mission and evangelism!"

I guess that's what I had done my whole life... I had just kept moving on immediately after sin. I had never stopped and taken an inventory of my heart. Not only was there a lot of wicked desires in there, but even the good things were tainted by the bad... I had never realized that I could be trying to do all the right things for all the wrong reasons. I could be worshipping and ministering and pastoring out of sinful motivations (like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, who wants all the things the Father gives without the Father himself... the older brother who performs his but off trying to earn everything the Father has without realizing that the Father has given it to him already...) My heart was broken! The more holy and pure I realized God was, the more wicked I saw myself. That was the bad news!

Then the good news came flooding in and overwhelmed my heart. He cared about the sin, but He cared about me more... enough to make a way out of the mess I had found myself in... It's interesting that the worse the bad news is, the better the good news is. The bigger and wider and more impossible the gap between my sinfulness and God's holiness, the more amazing grace becomes.

I realized that before this moment the gospel was always "ok news;" but when I took the time to realize how broken I truly was without God, and how impossible all of my situations were, I realized what marvelous news the gospel was!

Grace became more and more amazing! Worship began pouring out of my soul, not as some way to get things from God, but as the natural result of a soul that deserves nothing, but has ALREADY been given everything from God! I deserved death, but I was breathing and eating drinking deeply from life! I deserved eternal sorrow, but I was laughing and singing and dancing! I deserved to be cut-off, but I was surrounded by people that loved me! I deserved hell, both in this life and the next, but I was already beginning to taste the sweetness of heaven here and now... the sweetness of my future eternal reward... A reward I didn't earn or deserve, but one that was earned and secured for me by Christ!

Like I said, worship flowed from my heart!

I was overwhelmed by the goodness and undenyable grace of God.

I realized that I had been given everything I needed through Christ and His sinless life, His efficacious death on the cross, and His empowering resurrection!

The Gospel changed my heart... it transformed the heart of worship forever!

When I came to a church gathering and sang praise, joining in with a host of voices in corporate worship, it took on a new meaning... a new life. I wasn't trying to gain special favors or experiences or strategically find my way into new dimensions... I wasn't trying to find formulas to get into God's presence or make things happen. Worship was not the means to anything... it was an end in itself. God was not a means to anything anymore... He was an end in Himself. I had already been given everything. If I never had a new word or fresh revelation from God, He had already spoken and given me His Word. If I never saw a healing, He had already healed me ultimately... If I never felt His presence, those moments I had already experienced in His presence were enough already! What grace He had already given me that I should even be called His child... That He would EVER move on my heart and draw me to Him.

Now don't get me wrong... I am persuaded that God still heals and speaks and draws us into moments of rapture in His presence! The Holy Spirit still opens up our hearts to receive the deep mysteries of His Word! BUT I am content... more than content, I am satisfied with the gospel and what God has already revealed to me and done for me. Worship is continually flowing from this heart to God throughout the day (in decisions and relationships and conversations) and in special times of corporate worship in songs and expressions and shouts of praise.

Of course I have not perfected this...

If I worshipped perfectly:

I would never sin...

I would pray without ceasing...

I would truly believe in my heart (not just comprehend in my mind) that everything I need is in Him...

My heart would find its full identity in Him...

Other people's words would not affect me...

I would rest from my spiritual works...

Anxiety and fear would be strange feelings from a past life...

Instense love is the only lens through which I would see anyone (even bad drivers)...

My life would be a perpetual mission...

My relationships and actions and words would be soaked in the gospel...

In short, I would be like Christ...

And there is coming a day where "...we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is..."

In that day, Christ will be the only target of our worship and hope and trust...

In that day, we will experience the fulfillment of our humanity...

In that day, we will be true worshippers.

But until then, let's realize that we are all worshippers, we just fall short in 'where' we aim our hope...

And let's make God the center of our lives...

And let's not pursue God for His gifts...

And let's not use worship as some sort of sick gift to ourselves...

Let's avoid the "raindance mentality" and let God be God, without trying to manipulate Him...

Let's stand before the cross in awe and let worship flow from our ever-expanding belief in His gospel and our ever-widening appreciation of His grace...

Let's realize who we are in this thing, and see God as He truly is...

And let's become more like Him as we focus our hope and attention more and more upon Him...

Let's become true worshippers, who worship the Father in spirit and truth...

When I thought of worship, I thought of music. Dance. Gyrating. Screams and Shouts and Bobby-pins flying around the altar, as the Pentecostal updo's came shaking down. The reality of worship as a lifestyle had never dawned on my pre-teen mind. As I prayed and researched and contemplated the nuances of this thing called worship I realized something: I am always worshipping. Every single moment of my life is an act of worship. Whether I am deliberating on what to buy in the store, or typing an email to a friend. If I am sitting at my desk in school, playing basketball, or on a date... worship. It is not something I conjure up... I was made to worship, and it's something I can't turn off... worship is the ever-present state of my heart.

Let me explain. We live in a fast-paced consumer culture where advertising grabs our attention and seeks to grab our hearts. "You are unhappy. You need our product. Then you will be fulfilled." This is the message we hear repeated a thousand times a day. "Put your hope in us, and we will fix this area of your life." Something always has our focus. Something always competes for our attention.

Right now I am focused on writing this. Right now you are reading it. You are choosing whether you agree with what I am saying or not. As I sit in this cafe typing, how many things are going on all around me? A guy just spilled coffee all over the table a few feet away and it's dripping all over the floor, as he curses under his breath and sops it up madly with his two free napkins. Hurried waitresses are hustling by... hustling for their tips. They make a living here. Their life is defined by their performance. A stunningly-beautiful blonde girl walks by. The guy cursing at his coffee pauses as she passes... his eyes scan her from top to bottom and meet my eyes as she passes my table. As his brain registers this miniscule moment of time, he realizes that I see into his heart. He lowers his eyes from my gaze, pauses, then proceeds to sop up the coffee. I continue to type.

I am surrounded by worship.

Harold Best says it this way: "We were created continuously outpouring. Note that I did not say we were created to be continuous out-pourers. Nor can I dare imply that we were created to worship. This would suggest that God is an incomplete person whose need for something outside himself (worship) completes his sense of himself. It might not even be safe to say that we were created for worship, because the inference can be drawn that worship is a capacity that can be separated out and eventually relegated to one of several categories of being. I believe it is strategically important, therefore, to say that we were created continuously outpouring—we were created in that condition, at that instant, Imago Dei."

What Harold Best is saying is that all of us are looking for something to aim our hope toward… The world is NOT simply divided between two groups of people: Those who worship and those who don’t. It is divided between people who worship things that will distort their lives, and people who worship the only proper object worthy of the worship of their soul. You are either worshipping the wrong things or you’re worshipping the only One whose worship will not distort your life.

As I think back on the past few minutes here in this cafe, I try to imagine where people were putting their hope. The man who lost His temper at his coffee spillage, then ogled the passing beauty. The worried-eyed waitresses performing for a paycheck. You. Me. Where is our hope?

Maybe our ultimate hope for salvation and life beyond lies in Christ, but according to what true worship is, our hope in EVERY situation must be Christ. Of course that doesn't mean we lie around like piles of gelatin waiting on God to drop manna into our mouths and send cash to our mailboxes. It doesn't mean that the waitress shouldn't be working for a paycheck... but what would happen to that worried look in her eyes and the frantic frenzy of her hurried steps if she knew God was truly in control and that He would provide for her-even if she made a mistake and lost this job tomorrow... because He is the one who gives her the breath in her lungs and the ability to earn an income... and He's the one who gave her the opportunity to earn that income here...and He will continue to provide for her long after she's moved on from this job. Her performance is important, but God is her ultimate source of hope, whether she realizes it or not.

Am I saying that the guy can't feel any emotion when he spills his coffee? No, frustrations come... but our outbursts do betray our hearts and where we put our trust... Did God stop being in control because he spilled his coffee? Did the earth spin off it's axis? Did the world end? Worse things have happened and will happen to this coffee-spilling ogler of women, but his hope in this moment is in his fragile sense of control. His hope may be in having the perfect, unstained outfit and impressing the people he works for, or some potential boss he's going to an interview with. This outburst was not about the coffee. It's about his expectations... it's about all the other layers beneath... Is God his source of hope in this moment or his own perceived sense of control? Is he trusting God for his identity, or is he finding his identity in the eyes of his co-workers and bosses and those who will judge him for his coffee-stains?

Am I judging him for admiring beauty or for pursuing his love interests... of course not! But ask yourself, as he watched her pass, where was he putting his hope? Was he believing that God is good and that He has already made provision for his happiness, or was his unsatisfied soul hungrily lusting for more and more... always dreaming about the next thing out of reach? Did his eyes reveal his heart's ultimate desire? Was that desire submitted to God, or has it taken up residence on the throne of his heart? I don't know... Only he can look inward with the guidance of the Spirit and catch any kind of glimpse at what's going on deep within. I'm just a silent observer.

As you read this, where does your mind go? Where are you putting your hope? What things take up residence in your heart? Whatthings take up a majority of your resources (time, energy and effort)?

Whether we are worshipping our own sexuality and ability to provide for ourselves...

Whether we are worshipping those around us and their approval or what they offer...

Whether we are worshipping our jobs, possessions, relationships, status, or religious performance...

Whether we are worshipping things that distort our lives or the only One who will give our lives meaning...

We are always worshipping.

As Tim Keller says, "True worship isn’t manufacturing something you don’t have already or trying to think of things to say about God and to God… Worship is TRANSFERRING the ultimate value from the things that your heart has already said are ultimate, TO GOD. Every single person has put their hope in something. They say 'If I have THAT, THEN I’ll be ok, Then I’ll know who I am, Then I’ll have meaning or purpose in life, Then I’ll be happy.' Everybody has that. Everybody is living for something... but whatever that thing is, it completely orients your whole life. It can completely control you... This is what worship is. Not just coming and singing songs or praying here and there. Worship is recognizing you ALREADY have ascribed ultimate value to something in your life and worship is the process Redirecting all of your hope and all of your focus and towards God."

Discovering this truth about worship was transformational for me. My walk with God began to change almost overnight. It was like I saw everything with new eyes... like a heavy fog had lifted. Worship wasn't getting something from God, it was giving something to God... not because He needed it, but because I needed Him. Worshiping the one true God is ultimately the most healing thing in your life!

But there is still one remaining danger! I had to ask myself why I was doing it? What was my motivation for worshipping? Why was I trying to redirect my worship from all the false gods in my life to the one true God? Was it self-centered? I was finally beginning to wrap my mind around what worship truly was, but I realized my heart was still in the wrong place. I was still at the center. I wanted to worship God for what I got from it.

It wasn't until I let my heart be overwhelmed by the gospel that worship began to change me forever...

(Part 3 Coming Soon...)

Worship is weird outside of a gospel-centered context... I remember growing up as a kid in church and trying to wrap my mind around why this all powerful Being NEEDED my worship... why I had to go sing to Him every Sunday... I felt like my worship somehow fulfilled Him... like He was incomplete without it and if He didn't get it somehow He would be angry, like a spoiled kid who doesn't get his toy in the store and throws a tantrum (something I was very familiar with around this time).

As I grew to know the Lord on a personal level, praying and reading His Word, I began to realize that He's not at all like that kid who doesn't get his way, and that He doesn't even need my worship... which led me to a weird place: apathy towards worship. If He doesn't need it, what's the point?

I was still a long way off from understanding the depths of the gospel message, but I knew some of the basics: that He died for my sins and loved me. This sparked something within my heart... a little bit of thanks. "Wow God, that's pretty cool... thanks... um, I guess you had to because you felt guilty for cursing us all along with Adam, Eve and the whole planet, but I do appreciate You for forgiving us and dying under the weight of Your own heavy decree... that's nice. Thanks!" I knew He loved me because I could feel His love for me when I prayed and I would be overwhelmed at times with His Spirit... but I still somehow felt like I was doing Him a favor when I worshipped Him.

Day in and day out as my relationship with God took on new forms... as I experienced life with it's diverse situations and had to go to God for answers, my appreciation for Him grew and my walk deepened. I began to weep as I thought about His love for me. I began to be moved in times of corporate worship, which was easy in the Pentecostal church I grew up in, where worshipful expression was given full-license. Still, the worship I gave Him was shallow and immature. In fact, it began to twist and turn and transform into something else altogether. Somewhere in there worship became all about me.

It's interesting how easily this happened. There were services I attended during that time where I went expecting nothing, but somewhere in the music I would be overwhelmed by my emotions and an overwhelming sense of God's presence... The feeling was so great... the joy so inexplicable that I began seeking the experience of being in His presence. I would "pray hard" and say things I knew He wanted to hear so I could experience that high again... I would jump and run and contort my body... I would "Dance like David danced," not as a result of His powerful presence, but as some perverted form of a "rain-dance" trying my best to make God to move. looking back now I feel like I behaved less like a Christ-follower and more like one of the prophets of Baal, doing anything to get the fire to come down! I was seeking the gifts of His presence, and not the divine Giver himself.

Don't get me wrong, there were positive motivations in there too! I wanted God to move so miracles would happen! I wanted people to get healed! I wanted broken hearts to be mended, and broken relationships to be restored! And most of all I wanted people to be filled with the Spirit! But all these motivations paled in comparison to the high I was chasing. Then, when God seemed not to respond in the way I wanted Him to, I became that kid in the toy store... I half-blamed God and half-blamed all the carnal people who weren't worshipping Him enough... "If we just had more unity!"

One day I found myself in a spiritual desert, starving for 'more of God' and wondering if there was some secret sin in my life that was causing Him to judge me by withholding those moves of His Spirit that I was feening for. Desperate for more experiences, I stepped into the shoes of a mad scientist and began researching worship in order to break down the perfect formula to get God to move... to sustain my fix. In my mad pursuit I read the Psalms... I read the Gospels and Epistles... I read and read and read... and I discovered something. Worship is not what I thought it was...

(Part 2 Coming soon...)


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