The Weight of Worship…
10.13.24
“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him… Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:7-14
Anyone who has gone through any weight training program or has experienced a significant injury that has caused a prolonged stop in physical activity has experienced a curiously unequal truth about our bodies… Our muscles shrink far quicker than they grow. Muscle atrophy (muscle loss) can happen at a surprising rate of 0.5% per day due to disuse. I don’t know about you, but I found that number shocking. That means in a month’s time you could lose 15% of your strength from inactivity! Unfortunately, during that same month stretch of time one would be lucky to experience muscle growth equal to that same 0.5% you can lose each day.
In the parable of the tower (the cost of discipleship) Jesus warns His disciples to consider what is necessary to be a flourishing follower of Jesus. One cannot just look at the ground and say “I am going to build a tower” and then magically a tower appears. The same can be applied in the above analogy. I can’t just wake up one day and declare to the world that I am now a body builder, eat a box of cereal, and go back to bed expecting to wake up to Arnold staring back at me in the mirror. When you match this parable with Paul’s words about following Jesus, it is clearly not just about counting the cost, but doing what it takes to pay the cost.
Unfortunately, the easiest muscle for us to work both physically and when it comes our worship is our tongue. What is easier, to talk about lifting 300lbs or lifting it with our bodies? Again, what is easier, to sing or say that we worship Jesus or to worship Jesus with our actions?
Paul was the perfect example of the transformation that happens in this confession. Paul said, “if anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more” and that he was “as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” Paul gained the reputation through his maneuvering of the religion systems of being at the top. Paul could have just ridden that glory for the rest of his life and potentially had a pretty easy gig. But once Paul realized that his words and activity were not worshipping God, and in fact were contrary to the mission of God, he realized he needed to choose whether he was willing to change course. Paul saw the calling Jesus revealed to him, but this calling meant that he would need to regard whatever gains he thought he was making as “loss” and entered a life where he would “suffer the loss of all things and regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.” When Paul describes this life of faith, we do not see a passive life of lip service but a life of action. He later writes “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
If we want to experience the fruit of our calling to follow Jesus, just like increasing our muscle, it takes discipline. The Church has long recognized this need and has articulating practices and patterns for this work and even named them “spiritual disciplines.” The word “worship” means to glorify God. When we glorify God, we are told that we are blessed. But the calling of Jesus means that our worship is more than a song but pressing into a life of active obedience in a world that so often contradicts this way of life. But if we want to be freed from artificial gains that just lead to an atrophied faith, so we, like Paul, can grow into a faith that is strong enough to carry our calling with joy.