Why I Worship

Ephesians 3:14-21New International Version (NIV)

A Prayer for the Ephesians

14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious richeshe may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I saw a post on Facebook the other day that said 4 year olds ask 437 questions per day.  When I first saw the post, I laughed and agreed.  I thought the number may even be a little larger than that for Griffin!  As I prepared for this morning’s message, I thought I would do a little research to see how correct that stat was.  If a four year old is awake for 12 hours then that would mean they ask one question every 99 seconds if they truly ask 437 questions in a day.  Still seemed like it could be true to me.  But the more research I did I found that the number of questions is most likely closer to 390 which is one question every 116 seconds.  Either way, it is a lot of questions and I still think Griffin is bringing that average up.  Answering questions like ‘why is water wet’ and ‘what are shadows made of’ and just plain ‘why’ can be difficult but if I were to ask you ‘why do you worship God’ would you be able to answer quickly?  If not, it is not a knock on your faith but it is a question we probably do not often think about.  Praying, worshipping, being spiritual is often times something we do with little thought.  I think Paul’s letter to the Ephesians helps us to answer the question of why we worship.  

Paul does a great job of explaining why he “kneels before the Father.”  In other words, Paul is writing a justification for his beliefs explaining why he believes what he does.  First, Paul says, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being...”  I think it is important that Paul started here.  He worships for the benefit of others.  The most unselfish thing we can do is worship for the benefit of those around us.  Here is the first answer to the question of why we worship: so that others can see the love of God.  We pray for the strengthening of the inner being of those around us.  We pray and worship so others may be strengthened.  God does not call us to prayer to point out the wrongs of others.  He calls us into communication with Him so that we better understand one another.  We pray so that the Spirit may strengthen those in need.  Paul goes onto say that we pray “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”  Our prayers are not commands or a list of demands.  We pray for the possibility of Christ dwelling in the hearts of those whom we lift up.  We pray for the possibility or chance.  That is why I worship: because through Christ, the possibility of anything is greater.  

Secondly, Paul goes onto to say, “And I pray that you may have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”  In all honesty, this is a pretty lofty ambition of Paul’s for I don’t know that we ever fully grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ actually is.  But I don’t know that fully understanding the depths of that love is as important as knowing that those depths exist.  Do you see the difference?  We don't have to fully understand, grasp and explain the depths of God’s love to know it exists.  For example, look at the universe.  Scientists have come a long ways in explaining just how big they think space may be but even the smartest of physicists can't completely grasp, understand and explain the vastness of space.  They have given it their best shot and can explain all that they know but their explanation still  comes up short.  I think God’s love and the universe have a lot in common: the vastness and depth of each is unexplainable, yet they undoubtedly exist.  Paul was notorious for his run-on sentences so I took out the commas to help us better understand the main part of what Paul was trying to say about the depth of God’s love but it is also important that we discuss what was between the commas so here are verses 17b-18 in their entirety, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ...”  He wants us to know that we are rooted and established in love always.  But he also wants us to know that we are in this “together with all of the Lord’s holy people.”  When we, as the human race, realize that we are all rooted in love and we are all apart of God’s family, then and only then will we be able to break down the walls that separate us.  This too seems like a lofty ambition and it may be but knowing that someone who may hate you is still loved by God will make you look at the world differently.  Are there too many things in this world that separate us?  Religion? Politics? Economics?  Sure, the differences may seem too difficult to overcome but in thinking that we are putting a cap on God’s ability.   I may never fully understand the depths of God’s love but I don’t have to explain it to know it exists and that is why I worship.

Third, Paul says he prays that we “...know this love surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”  It is difficult for us to imagine because we want to give so much credit to our knowledge but the kind of love I am trying to explain is bigger and better than I can explain.  It is bigger and better than I can make sense of.  I know that a lot of what I say can come across as rainbows and dancing in a meadow if we would just love one another and love God.  I am not that naive.  There are going to be extreme Muslims.  There are going to be extreme Christians.  There are going to be extreme (fill in the blank) There will always be those looking for more power and money.  And chances are that there will always be someone out there who wants to hurt or take advantage of someone else, just look at the serpent in the Garden, but thinking that those things can never change is putting a cap on God’s ability and I am not willing to do that.  I don’t know why loving parents lose a child.  I can’t explain why someone walks into a military recruitment office or movie theater and starts shooting.  I can’t explain why our mind may fail us as we get older causing us to say things we don’t mean.  Quite simply, I don’t know.  But, that is why I worship.

Lastly, Paul concludes our scripture for this morning by saying, “ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”  Paul does his best to explain the depths of God’s love to many groups of people and yet he comes up short.  God is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine.  If I truly believe what Paul says then I cannot doubt that God has the power to end hunger, to bring peace, to end the brutal ways we treat one another.  If God has the power to do such things then the question remains: why hasn’t He?  That is why I worship: because God first loved me and through His ability to accomplish things I cannot imagine we will change the world.  We will be a light upon a hill.  We will help piece together a fractured world.  God’s love can and will.  This is why I worship.  Amen.