The Heart of Worship
By Bryan Rollins
Do you ever feel tired? I mean spiritually tired. Like you need to just retreat away from the world for a day or two? Like you want to take a God-sized nap?
Recently at LCC Young Adults, we’ve been studying about an encounter Jesus had with a Gerasene demon-possessed man (Mark 5:1-20). The man had been under the control of these sadistic captors for a while, but Jesus did what an entire country tried and could not do. He set the man free from spiritual darkness.
What really sticks out to me about this encounter is the man’s response. When the other Gerasenes came to see what had happened, they found the man sitting, at peace, and in his right mind.
As I think about the man sitting there, I hear the psalmist say, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10). Other translations say, “stop fighting” or “stop striving.” Stop and rest in who God is and what He has done for us. When we do this, we are worshipping God in response to His grace. And grace is simply defined as God's Riches At Christ’s Expense (see what I did there, I spelled grace).
As Christians, we worship in response to God’s grace given to us at the cross. We love because He first loved us. Grace is a gift because there is nothing we can do to free ourselves from the captivity of sin.
At its core, worship is simply stopping and giving glory, honor, praise and worthiness to God. We can do it in several different ways: praying, singing, reading scripture, journaling or sharing our stories with others. And we shouldn’t forget the reason why we worship: Jesus came to live the life we could not live and die the death we deserve so that we could worship God. Remember, He’s done all the work for us.
Ultimately, worship is sitting in the grace of Jesus Christ and expressing who He is back to Him. Like the Gerasene man, when we do this, we can find peace, rest and joy.
In this season, it is important that Christians take worship seriously. We will have to seek it. But God promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him. Sometimes it might feel like a battle, but God says throughout the scriptures that He is present in the battle.
It is also important that we are worshipping with the right heart. When we worship with the right posture, we will find rest and peace. As Jesus says at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Bryan Rollins and his wife Erica serve as LCC’s Young Adult Leaders. They have been members of LCC since 2016 and live in Bluffton with their dog Gracie.