At its most basic level discipleship is being a follower of a person, philosophy, or organization. Based on that definition, we all are a disciples of something or someone. If you are a professing Christian, we are to be a follower of Christ. Based on Romans 8: 28-30 our goal is to be made into His image.
Because I lead a worship arts ministry, I found myself this morning asking the question: What did Jesus’ worship look like? If we are to be His disciple, then I think having an understanding of what His worship looked liked both publicly and privately would better help us to follow after Him and to become more like Him.The ironic thing is that I cannot find much written on the topic. I admit that I have not done an exhaustive search and that the Cowboys poor performance last night distracted me from giving the topic its needed focus (LOL). But in the cursory glance that I have afforded the topic there are some generalizations that have appeared that I would like to give some consideration to and share with you.
It is apparent to me that the Bible records more about Jesus private worship than His public worship. Over and over again we see Jesus withdrawing for private worship through prayer. I am reading through the Gospel of Luke at the moment in my devotional time and just in that book there are several accounts of His private worship through prayer (Luke 4:42, Luke 5:16, Luke 6:12, Luke 9:18). What stands out to me is that there is little recorded about Christ’s public worship.
While there may be more, there are two passages that came to mind immediately for me: John 4: 1-26 (the woman at the well) and Mark 14:26 (singing after the last supper). During my devotion with the Worship Ministry this Monday morning we really dug into this idea and I was struck by the comparison between Jesus private and public worship.
There were things about Christ’s private and public worship that were the same. His prayers had the same focus (the mission) and He worshiped for the most part among the people and their typical surroundings. However, there were also differences in His private and public worship. He drew personal strength from His private worship while His public worship tired Him at times. One obvious difference that really caught my attention was that He was more intimate in private than in public.
During the last blog post, I shared that worship at its heart is expressed love to God. With that definition a curious and interesting analogy occurred to me this morning: marriage. Within a marriage there are certain acts of affection that are appropriate in public and others that are not. But at the two extremes of this analogy there are truths to be discovered regarding the integrity of our own worship.
If a person is intimate with their spouse in private but not in public, their spouse will begin to become concerned that their love is not genuine and that they are embarrassed to express their affection. However, there are certain intimacies that are only meant only for our spouse in private. Those more intimate affections add value and a deeper connection to the very personal relationship with our spouse. I think these same principles are transferable to our public and private worship. How many times have you been a situation where you saw an affectionate couple in public and you thought “get a room”! There are also times when you see a husband and wife that you know and they hug, hold hands, or kiss and you think how sweet and endearing their public act of affection is was.
My relationship with Christ drives me to want to be more intimate with Him in private leading me to share a greater portion of who I am in that quite place. Where I allow only Him to know the deepest parts of me and want to know Him more deeply. There is also something to be said for me being genuine in my public worship of Him and showing affection that is appropriate and does not make others feel awkward. I do not want to have a lack of integrity in either my public worship or my private worship. But I must confess that at times I lack one or the other.
Take some time this week to consider if you lack genuineness in either your public or private worship. Allow God to expose your lack of integrity. Then share with those that you lead with how you want to improve your private worship. Consider what is appropriate, but be genuine. Then give consideration as to how being more intimate in private with God will affect your public worship and affection for Him; how your example may affect or encourage those around you to be more genuine and real in their worship?
Feel free to leave your ideas, questions, or comments on this blog or the ORBC Worship facebook so that we all can all grow and learn together!
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