In continuation of my long-but-slow running series on Worship (“Don’t say anything unless it’s worth taking a long time to say” – Treebeard, Lord of the Rings – my paraphrase), I wanted to put up a blog on the subject of Extravagant Worship.

That Treebeard quote above wasn’t serious by the way.

In these days of post-modern, “post-mission” (tosh), everything-church thinking (cafe-church internet-church bornagain-church purposedriven-church deconstructed-church) you pretty much have to define everything again before you can talk about it, as is the case, sadly, in most areas of western life.

This can be a bit of a bore, but if we are asking ourselves “what is worship?” again, which we do all need to do for ourselves anyway, I believe this aspect is just as important as those I have already covered (see Worship 1-3 blogs).

In fact I believe this aspect of worship could really revolutionise our worship services, if we and our congregations all knew how to pick up on it and really run with it. Indeed I can say that churches I know of which HAVE grasped this, have something about them that is really DIFFERENT.

People, I find, can either be generally passive when it comes to singing some songs in church, or if passionate, can still be afraid of expressing it too much, there is always a measure of reserve.

Why there is reserve, I don’t know. He’s awesome.

But to get over this obviously we don’t beat people over the head with a Bible and say “Be passionate!” – we model it by example from our hearts, in love. So what are we meant to be modelling?

DAVID

David knew the meaning of worship, through and through. I know, he’s the classic one, but let’s pick him up again, as we have so much to learn from this great man who God said had a heart after His own.

We find him worshiping in different ways. In writing the Psalms. In playing the harp. Probably on the hillside when he wasn’t nutting bears and lions to save his sheep. Later in life, when he was setting up the tabernacle, he was establishing a whole worship ministry if you like, to carry on 24/7!

But the example I want to pick up on for this subject takes us to 2 Samuel 6, where David is bringing the ark back to Jerusalem. It has been a tough time for them, as the ark has been the possession of the Philistines for some time. Then, when they got it back, they forgot to read the manual and work out how it was meant to be carried, instead letting oxen do the job. If you haven’t heard about Uzzah, who reached out to steady the ark when the oxen stumbled, then you’ve missed out.

He got fried.

So, after an interim, David finds out the priests are supposed to carry it, and proceeds to see it brought back to Jerusalem.

In doing so, he orders that sacrifices be made every 6 paces all the way back from Obed-Edom’s house (where it had been staying) to Jerusalem. I don’t know the exact measurement, but that’s a lot of sacrifice! Furthermore, and this is the main thing (which is why I have been only skimming over the details) David really expressed his worship by stripping down to JUST a linen ephod (embarrassing if not slightly scary to behold) and dances before the Lord – the Bible says, with ALL his MIGHT. That means, all of his strength and energy went into that dance.

Now, I don’t know what it looked like, but I can get an idea. He could have been an amazing dancer, we don’t know, but chances are that when someone dances spontaneously, without announcement, wearing just a linen ephod, while every six paces following the guys who are killing animals and spilling blood everywhere – chances are I would think this guy SLIGHTLY strange. I’d probably wonder what he was doing leading my country, but I guess I wouldn’t be able to question that. I certainly could get offended easily.

This, I believe, is the kind of worship God loves. I think I’ll just leave that to be pondered on for a little while.

MARY

Well, what about New Testament worship? Okay. Here’s Mary in Mark 14 and John 12, coming and breaking the cultural and social barriers of the day, bringing an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard, breaking it and pouring out the whole lot on Jesus, all over His head, and using it to anoint His feet and wipe them with her hair. Now to us this might at least appear alarming, but to the folk of that day, to whom women were a subordinate race (effectively), this would have been outrageous, and a great cause for offense.

There were rational arguments at that table as to why this was a crazy thing for this woman to do. The perfume she just wasted would have been worth a year’s wages. Wherever she got the money from, it’s all just been completely used up in one go, being poured all over Jesus! And so often, in church, you will find people who think it reasonable and right to call anything ‘extreme’ and ‘radical’ into question for the sake of other people, for the poor, for some outwardly-compassionate reason. There are other occasions when what appeared to be outward compassion was contrary to the purpose of God (such as the disciples ‘compassionately’ desiring to send the 5000 away when Jesus had plans for a bit of bread and fish!).

But despite all the rational, seemingly-compassionate arguments (which really had no compassion on this woman at all), Jesus loves it, and testifies that her testimony will go down permanently in history. On a similar occasion recorded in Luke 7, He also released the woman of her sins, because she worshipped Him in this way.

Notice that on both occasions, the expression of love for the Lord was something visibly, outwardly, expressively radical, involving a lot of the outward involvement in worship. Our attitude these days of ‘the heart’ is good (I have written about it!) but we must COMPLETE the picture by understanding that what goes on in my heart, if it is truly there, WILL have an outward manifestation and expression, which if it is love for the good God we have, will probably be extravagant!

Notice also that on both occasions there was opportunity for offense, and it was taken each time – by Michal in the case of David, and by those reclining at the table in the case of Mary. If you are offended at something – check yourself! It may be God!

Notice also God’s love for the worshipper – His declaration that David had a heart after His own, and His declaration that Mary’s story will never be forgotten. There was an immortalisation of the name of each worshipper!

Here’s the ultimate thing: He is a very, very, very good God. And when, in the world, we see something great, we celebrate it. We laugh at a funny movie. We cheer (and scream and jump) when our team wins. We cheer louder (and scream louder and jump higher) at a music concert we’ve waited ages for.

And yet, for some reason, we come to church, and get all sleepy, or are afraid to sing too loud, or are afraid to get up and dance, for fear of what people will think of us, or something….SOMETHING is holding us back, and has stunted the worship life of the church, where the world is able to excel and increase. There are celebrities and stars taking glory all the time, and God is getting hardly any in comparison! We are perhaps afraid that our expressions will somehow be irreverent, or unworthy, but if these Biblical examples are anything to go by, that’s not true.

“God loves a cheerful giver.” But, Paul, it’s all about the heart. Yes, I know, but, God loves someone who knows how to outwardly express what’s in their heart, cheerfully! I guess that put’s together the heart “cheerful”, and the action “giver”. There. Now we have no excuse!

One final anecdote, just to really drive the point home. I once heard a guy preaching, and saying how he’d been at some football games, cheering on his team, but at the same time wrestling with the idea that all this cheering and shouting was just extreme idolatrous worship, and that this was what God was saying about it. So he would find himself “coming against this spirit of idolatry.” But one time, the Lord surprised him by saying, “I like it.”

“What?!” this guy responded back. God proceeded to tell him, that He liked it a lot. Because He saw in it the potential, that when all these football crowds got saved, or when all the screaming music fans got saved, and came into the church and saw God doing awesome things in our midst, that they would be the ones who really knew how to worship Him and thank Him for it, who would give Him the kind of offering He’s looking for.

Wow. This is what I’m after. A church that will worship God more than the world will worship their idols of music, or sport, or anything else that they give so much time, attention, voice, expression and even (dare I say!) money too! Because He’s so worth all of it!

“The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8

As He was coming down from the mountain one time, Jesus was suddenly approached by a social outcast of the day – a leper. He has just delivered a fantastic message to crowds concerning the kingdom of God. Now this leper comes pleading: “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus’ immediate response is, “I am willing, be cleansed.” This is the kingdom. Not only in word, but in power (1 Cor 4:20). In Mark chapter 1 at the outset of His ministry we see this dynamic even more emphasised, as the crowds are astonished because His teaching is with authority, namely, that He is casting out demons while He preaches!

Acts 10:38 gives us the ultimate revelation on this matter, that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth, and He went about doing good and healing ALL who were oppressed by the devil. If you read the gospels, there is not one person He turned away because of some lame pseudo-Calvinistic philosophy that it wasn’t God’s timing or God wanted them to suffer in order to teach them. He healed everyone, sickness and oppression was from the devil. Period.

He called us to the same. In Matthew 10 He gave His disciples authority over unclean spirits, over sicknesses, and gave them the message that would bring the power: The kingdom of heaven is at hand. You can’t preach that message without God coming and backing it up with power. He will always validate His word, “These signs shall follow they who believe…” Too much these days we preach out of man’s wisdom and philosophy, and because of the age of Enlightenment and the intellectual West, that is seen as okay, whereas demonstrating power is not – it is cultic. Yet Paul would have had that the Corinthians didn’t rest their faith on the wisdom of men but on the power of God (1 Cor 2:1-5). Wow!

I find it glorious that the Lord would take us, the very people who were once separated from Him and living in rebellion, redeem us, cleanse us, turn us around, and then call us into fighting the very darkness that once held us bound! So, let’s start fighting!

I’m burning to see this world drained of every evil thing. The cross has utterly made the provision for this to occur, He is making ALL THINGS new, and is creating a new heaven and a new earth. There will be a time of the restoration of all things, when we will rule and reign with Him.

On our recent missions trip to Norway, we saw three elderly ladies’ arthritic condition dramatically improve so that on the evening of the day we prayed for them they were helping and serving and enjoying the time, being able to do things they hadn’t done for years. A stroke victim whose entire left side of their body had been made numb by the stroke felt a warm sensation right the way down her side when we prayed for her. A hard young atheist gave his life to the Lord. The husband of a woman in the church gave his life to the Lord. A man who said “If God doesn’t heal me tonight I won’t believe in Him” – guess what – He was healed. Also on a recent short ministry trip to the Isle of Wight, we saw a man’s aching back completely healed, freed up to move without pain; a girl who had pain in her feet from an accident four weeks earlier healed, so that she could run around; and many other testimonies of the nature of the Lord as being a GOOD GOD.

He is good, and His love endures forever! This is a truth that ought not just to be understood as a dogmatic truth but as a truth which should manifest itself. Paul saw his commendation as being in the fact that truth manifested, it wasn’t simply taught by words, but it was demonstrated by the authentication of the Holy Spirit’s power. (2 Cor 4:2)

I was watching a movie at someone’s house, well it was kind of on in the background: Horton Hears a Who, based on the story by Dr. Zeuss. And the fundamental problem for Horton, as he expresses it in one early explanatory scene, is if there is life on this tiny bud on a little flower (can’t remember which flower) – which is indeed the case, a whole colony exists of the ‘Whos’ in ‘Whoville’ – then how do we not know that there is life outside of us in turn watching down on us?

Indeed.

Does the fact that there is something smaller than us in turn perhaps indicate that there might be something – or someone – bigger than us?

This might be ludicrous if taken to the nth degree, how far could you go either way? Yet in science we do see a finite universe, finite existence, boundaries and rules. So logically there ought to be an origin, someone at the very top from where it all started. I just wonder if the small things in life are meant to point to the bigger one, are bait to help us think introvertedly.

Incidentally I like to think of the birth of Jesus in this way. The entrance of God into this world was heralded and proclaimed by angels, and yet He appeared first as a baby. I think this significantly helps us to think in this kind of way.

Just a thought. Maybe I’ll come back to it.

I’m still here, and crazy busy! Feel like I haven’t written anything for the blog in ages but don’t worry, that will change very soon. I’ve got lots brewing, including a 10-12,000 word project on Old Testament treatment of money and how that translates today (okay maybe that’s too much to put on a blog!!) but also plenty of other thoughts on church stewardship as the West heads into economic turmoil, and also I have a mind to continue my thoughts on Worship (‘Worship 3: I’m coming back to the heart’ has been the most popular read here!) with a word on high-quality worship, musical or otherwise. And for any friends interested my personal development has been more accelerated than ever as I’m doing this leadership course with church, I can’t seem to catch up with myself! Quick faith story, I felt I should give up teaching guitar so I could actually have a day off in the week (I need it!) but this involved a bit faith step as I was counting on the teaching for the rest of my fees. Well, I did it, I gave up, and then discovered in a timely fashion that the tax man owes me lots of money! And again, just yesterday a family gave me an incredible cheque which I’m not sure how to begin to thank them for. It’s all very timely and I’m so grateful to the Lord for leading me in the way of faith. It has taken some dying to self, but He is so faithful to show up on the back of that!

Anyway, bless God. Blog soon.

In a bit of a daze at the end of a hard week it appears a little foggy to me to be able to answer this with clarity now but I can at least safely say I can see two answers.

At dinner tonight with friends, talk first turned to the swiftly closing Mayoral elections for London and the political ramifications inherent in voting not for policies, but purely for candidates, as policy seems almost immaterial in the much wider game that is being played here in London.

Following from this we engaged in a rather convicting discussion which revolved around consumerism, choice, the Smorgasbord we seem unable to avoid in every day life. The missionary couple from Nepal standing bewildered and thoroughly shocked by the culture as they take their first trip to whichever Supermarket was closest, they and others like them I know can tell that tale.

One of our friends, a doctor, professorial, philosopher-theologian highly engaged in debating current matters of justice, reflected on how a short trip to Burma had given him a beautiful taste of an incredibly different life: “What you did,” he said, “was to get food for the kids, and clothes on your back. That’s it. And everything goes at around 8 miles per hour, at this sort of biological speed – it’s wonderful.”

What he stated reflected just a small part of the overall distinction between what we know to be ‘normal life’ in our part of the world, and that in the (I suppose) ‘non-westernised’ parts. My own short trip to Thailand holds a similar mirror to the issue, blogged about a short while ago.

That makes one of my questions, where do we go from here? I believe Capitalism will not last – a statement which I know of course requires ample justification which I hope to provide in further bloggings in the near future. That means that either I follow it to the bitter end, try as I might to believe that it might work for me, even though we know from a short examination not only of today’s situation but of recent history, that we are getting worse and not better, economically.

Or, I go the way of the nomadic Jew who once worked in a carpenters shop only then to quit, give up everything, and live a radically different life from the rest of the world around Him, giving up possessions, money, often not even having anywhere to sleep. Yet somehow making it, and going on to become without doubt the most influential Man in history.

?

I shall blog more on this subject when I am decidedly more awake and have pondered this thing further.

After a spot of dithering about my old website (www.godislove.org.uk) I have decidedly decided to switch tac and engage in the world of blogging. Crikey, I sound like an old man. Well, here it is. I have a passion for lots of things…Jesus being the capstone of it all really. But I am feeling issues on family, poverty and possibly even politics brewing…hardly common features in the blogging world I think But this is a place for me to just be able to register my view for dispute and controversy…and maybe some agreement somewhere.

To come immediately: a spot of talk on my first trip to Asia, from which I returned a week ago, and the impact the trip had on me.

I hope that whoever reads this blog enjoys it, is blessed by it, is provoked by it, etc. Let’s go.