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Worship Is a Feast
relationship with him. He is the first mover, the first seeker, the first lover. The author is Sam Storms. WORSHIP IS A FEAST The proposition I want to place before you is this: If you come to worship for any reason other that the joy and pleasure and satisfaction that are to be found in God, you dishonor Him. To put it in other words, worship is first and foremost a feasting on all that God is for us in Jesus. This is because God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him. Or again, you are His pleasure when He is your treasure. Which is to say that God's greatest delight is your delight in Him. The bottom line is that you and I must come to worship hungry! We must not come with hands full of goodies and gifts, thinking that worship is fundamentally where we serve and feed God. As we saw in chapter three, God is not in need of us. We are in need of Him. Don't come to God with a cooked goose on a platter, as if God were hungry. Come with open hands and an empty belly and let Him honor Himself by filling you! We've already seen this, but it bears repeating. Consider this claim, outlandish were it not God Himself who makes it: For every beast of the field is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would tell you; for the world is Mine, and all it contains. (Psalm 50:10-12) This sentiment was echoed by Paul in his sermon on Mars Hill: The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is he served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since he Himself gives to all life and breath and all things. (Acts 17:24-25) Worship is a feast in which God is the host, the cook, the waiter, and the meal itself. - Sam Storms, in PLEASURES EVERMORE: THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER OF ENJOYING GOD, Colorado Springs: NavPress Press, 2000, p. 210. [The author acknowledges his debt to John Piper (DESIRING GOD) for the basic tenant of this book. See << www.wqotw.org/WQOTW/1997_WQs/WQ012197.txt>> for a great quote by John Piper.] Have a great week, Chip Stam Director, Institute for Christian Worship School of Church Music and Worship Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Louisville, Kentucky www.carlstam.org www.sbts.edu |