Who Am I? Day 16: I am a worshiper.

Genesis 2:15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Everybody worships something. Author Paul Tripp says it this way:

“Human beings by their very nature are worshipers. Worship is not something we do; it defines who we are. You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don’t. Everybody worships; it’s just a matter of what, or whom, we serve.”

Simply put, we are all worshipers because we were made by God to worship. As we pointed out on Day 15, the word for work, avad, in Genesis 2:15, is also the word for worship. God put the man in the garden to work, serve, worship. Eden was God’s garden temple, the meeting place of God and man, and men and women were created to serve in and protect that temple as its priests. This was their worship.

Maybe when you hear the word worship your imagination is limited to what Christians do on Sunday mornings in their church’s “worship service.” You might even limit the word worship to only the songs we sing. We call them worship songs. The song leaders are the “worship leaders.”  We stand for worship. We talk about how good (or not) the praise and worship was. But this is a long way from the Bible’s view of worship.

In the Bible, all of life is worship. Again, we are all worshiping something with our lives, we are all serving something or someone by our existence. More bluntly, we are all a slave to something (remember the Hebrew word for worshiper and slave are the same word). We were made to be the slaves of God. His king-priest-servants whose entire life is dedicated to his will and his glory. This is made most clear in the book of Exodus. Notice the use of the word avad in these two passages.

Exodus 1:13-14. ¹³So [the Egyptians] ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves [avad] ¹⁴and made their lives bitter with hard service [avodah], in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work [avodah] in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves [avodah].

But then, at the burning bush, God told Moses that he would free the Hebrews to serve him.

Exodus 3:12. He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve [avad] God on this mountain.”

God’s plan wasn’t to free humanity from slavery. His plan was to free humanity from slavery to anything other than himself. Why? Because this is humanity’s purpose – to serve God. To worship him. The command from God to Pharaoh through Moses isn’t just to let the Hebrews go. It is to let them go unto their greater purpose – worshiping God.

Who or what are you serving? Who or what do you live for? Your answer to this question is the most important thing about you. It reveals who or what you are worshiping. You see you have to serve something. If not God, something else. Self. Status. Stuff. Him. Her. Them. All are cruel taskmasters. Never satisfying your heart’s true desire. We are all slaves. And whatever enslaves you is your god.

In Christ, we have been set free from the slavery to all things that are lesser masters than God. In Christ, we can truly worship and serve God. As sons. Like Jesus himself, we can serve God and others as God intended, not from bondage but from freedom. This is what union with Christ offers to us, this whole new way to avad. A whole new way to be a slave. Not against our will, but by our will. By our new heart.

Questions: Who or what have you been serving? Do you see your whole life as worship to God? What is the difference between serving God from bondage versus serving him from freedom?