Work and Worship
To UNDERSTAND the relative importance of work and worship it is necessary to know the answer to the familiar question, "What is the chief end of man?" The answer given in the catechism, "To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever;" can scarcely be improved upon, though of course it is an outline only and needs to be enlarged somewhat if it is to be a full and satisfying answer.
The primary purpose of God in creation was to prepare moral beings spiritually and intellectually capable of worshiping Him. This has been so widely accepted by theologians and Bible expositors through the centuries that I shall make no attempt to prove it here. It is fully taught in the Scriptures and demonstrated abundantly in the lives of the saints. We may safely receive it as axiomatic and go on from there.
Once God existed in ineffable perfection of beauty with only the Persons of the Triune God to know and love each other.
"When heaven and earth were yet unmade,
When time was yet unknown,
Thou in Thy bliss and majesty Didst live and love alone."
Then God brought into being all things "that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him."
"How wonderful creation is.
The work that Thou didst bless,
And, oh! what then must Thou be like,
Eternal Loveliness!"
God is the essence of all beauty, the fountain of all spiritual sweetness that can be known or desired by moral beings. He can and does love Himself with an unutterably holy love which we fallen creatures can gaze upon only with veiled faces and about which we dare speak only with hushed reverence and with humble admission of all but total ignorance.
By that moral disaster known in theology as the fall of man an entire order of beings was wrenched violently loose from its proper place in the creational scheme and quite literally turned upside down. Human beings who had been specifically created to admire and adore the Deity turned away from Him and began to pour out their love first upon themselves and then upon whatever cheap and tawdry objects their lusts and passions found. The first chapter of Romans describes the journey of the human heart downward from the knowledge of God to the basest idolatry and fleshly sins. History is little more than the story of man's sin, and the daily newspaper a running commentary on it.
The work of Christ in redemption, for all its mystery, has a simple and understandable end: it is to restore men to the position from which they fell and bring them around again to be admirers and lovers of the Triune God. God saves men to make them worshipers.
This great central fact has been largely forgotten today, not by the liberals and the cults only, but by evangelical Christians as well. By direct teaching, by story, by example, by psychological pressure we force our new converts to "go to work for the Lord." Ignoring the fact that God has redeemed them to make worshipers out of them, we thrust them out into "service," quite as if the Lord were recruiting laborers for a project instead of seeking to restore moral beings to a condition where they can glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
This is not to say that there is not work to be done; most certainly there is, and God in His condescending love works in and through His redeemed children. Our Lord commands us to pray the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth laborers into His harvest field. What we are overlooking is that no one can be a worker who is not first a worshiper. Labor that does not spring out of worship is futile and can only be wood, hay and stubble in the day that shall try every man's works.
It may be set down as an axiom that if we do not worship we cannot work acceptably. The Holy Spirit can work through a worshiping heart and through no other kind. We may go through the motions and delude ourselves by our religious activity, but we are setting ourselves up for a shocking disillusionment some day.
Without doubt the emphasis in Christian teaching today should be on worship. There is little danger that we shall become merely worshipers and neglect the practical implications of the gospel. No one can long worship God in spirit and in truth before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist. Fellowship with God leads straight to obedience and good works. That is the divine order and it can never be reversed.
A. W. Tozer
Born After Midnight - Chapter 30
Chicago, IL
1959
