Follow and Worship

 November 25, 2022

One of our adult Sunday School classes is studying St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, with the leader encouraging the participants to read through the entire book once each week. Repetition helps us pick up things we miss at first glance. So even though I’m not in that particular class, I thought it would be instructive for me to engage that same discipline of reading through the book each week. I started today, and only got a few verses into the first chapter before I had to stop and ponder what was before me.

Chapter 1, verse 4 says, “Jesus Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power…by the resurrection from the dead.” Paul does not say Jesus Christ became the Son of God through the resurrection, but that he was DECLARED to be the Son of God with power through the resurrection. There is a big difference. The Second Person of the Trinity has always been the Son of God with power, but it was the resurrection that in a sense put an exclamation point on the fact. The resurrection powerfully demonstrated once and for all who Jesus Christ is—the Son of God.

This is a big deal! It’s one thing to follow Jesus because of his teaching, but quite another to worship him for who he is. We follow good examples (and often bad ones, too), but we don’t worship them. Worship, bending the knees of our hearts, is reserved for God alone. Now, it’s easy to say this, but much more difficult to actually worship. I know for a fact that I have followed Jesus’ example and teaching much more than I’ve bowed before him. Perhaps part of the reason for this is that I haven’t given the resurrection the place it deserves in my thinking and life, and have therefore missed God’s power for living the resurrection life.

Psalm 96 says it best: “Come, let us worship and bow down, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.” Follow Jesus, but in following, let’s not neglect worshipping him as Lord, Savior, and Almighty God.