Real Worship

Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
Matthew 5:23-24

Here we have a brief passage from Scripture which I never hear mentioned by preachers or theologians.

Perhaps the passage is too difficult to derive doctrine from ... or perhaps everyone who reads it comes to fear it in such a way that it is seldom remembered.

The command is deceptively simple. If you are giving something to God in His house and realize you have wronged someone, then you should leave the service and make things right and then come back.

Sounds like a casual, easy-to-follow command, right?

Perhaps the command would be easy to follow if we didn't cling to our reputation as a god over us.

In some ways, the command could be heard as, "That part of you that wants others to think highly of you even though you've wronged them ... that's got to go if you want to worship me."

I can't say I have perfectly followed this command, but I can remember obeying the command at least once ...

I had said something about someone at a party that made someone sound a little "scandalous" if you know what I mean. This person was a young man, let's call him Greg, serving in active ministry.

The day after the party I remember waking up and thinking, "I'm going to worship God today ... with the same mouth that I said that terrible thing about Greg ..." And the verse was emblazed like fire on my heart.

So I tried sitting down to play some video games before the service ... but really I was thinking about the verse.

I kept thinking about how if I tried to be reconciled to Greg he would misunderstand, or I would make it sound a lot worse than it was, or he would think I was an very untrustworthy fellow, et cetera.

And then the theological justifications came in ...

'If I put reconciliation before worship, it means my earthly relationship is more important to me than God.;

'If I leave the service to work it out with Greg, it just means I haven't trust God's finished work on the cross to make things right for me.'

The more theological gymnastics I went through the closer the verse stayed with me. It was like ... it didn't matter if everyone in the world was breaking this command of Christ ... it was still right there in my face and it said:

"Hey! You've got to decide whether or not you're going to obey me!"

Phew!

I am glad to say that this is one of the few times where I followed the leadership of God's Spirit and apologized to the guy.

Yes, it was VERY awkward, but it was real.

Of all the things to happen, Greg respected me for the apology and told me never to worry about the incident again!

I can't describe how beautiful it was to hear that. It was like heaven opening up and everything becoming good again.

It wasn't an achievement I could take credit for, it was mostly like the walls I had erected to protect myself from obeying God came tumbling down.

Part of the reason I bring this up has to do with a disagreement I'm having with a teacher at my old Bible school. The professor claimed that we shouldn't examine our own lives to see if we have faith because that would involve self-examination, which is narcissistic and a failure to focus on the complete work Christ has done.

As I learned in my apology encounter, God's goodness doesn't mean we can ignore what He has called us to.

The theologian (inside me) wants to respond to Jesus and say, "Why should I leave my sacrifice to make things right? Isn't God so perfect that it doesn't matter how I live?" Or as Dr. Jenson could have put it, "Isn't God more important than my issues?"

The answer is that God would rather have the earnest praise of a true follower over the false praise of a hundred million followers.

Just because I put authenticity before worshipping God does not mean I have more value to myself than God. In fact God demands that we 'get serious' about our choices before coming to Him.

And this is precisely the difficulty of the commandment.

God offers the forgiving work of His Son to all, but that doesn't mean that a half-serious seeker will find it.

Paul writes that a man ought to examine himself to determine if he is in the faith. This is the true (and daunting) task that Christ wishes for His disciples.