Doxa

This is from a message that Tim Smith, the worship pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, gave at a worship conference there. Tim was speaking about the Contextualization of Worship. . .while discussing this, he had this to say about worship:

"God existed before the foundation of the world; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe that He existed in that Trinitarian relationship, and in the past I've called that relationship 'worship', and I'm not completely sure that's the best word. . . the Bible calls it 'doxa,' glory. . . In John 17 Jesus is praying in the garden, and He says "Father, glorify me with the glory (doxa) I had with You before the world began." And I believe that God existed, Father, Son, and Spirit, before the foundation of the world in a mysterious, unbroken community of 'doxa.' It's more that worship. . .worship to us tends to imply the finite (us) reaching out to the infinite (God), and we believe that the Trinity is equality in being. . . there is still in a sense worship that goes on there, glory and mutual glorification between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, before the world began.

Out of that, creation overflows with that community of worship. And so He creates all the things through the different days of creation, and as the crowning work of His creative endeavors He creates man, and man is the only thing created in His image. And I believe that as man is the only thing created in His image, He has created us to be one who ceaselessly worships Him in the same way that God continuously pours Himself out in glorifying Himself, as it has been said "God is the only thing that can focus on its own glory on itself without it being pride and without it being sin."

So man was created in the image of God, and is created to be a ceaseless worshiper. And before sin entered into the garden, that worship was perfectly and endlessly focused towards God. But, as we know, worship did not stay that way, because sin entered into the world through man, who, I believe, was wanting and desiring the glory that only God Himself deserved. The King James translation expresses the lie that the serpent told to Eve as "If you eat of this, you will be like a god." I believe at the core of sin is a pride issue; we want God's glory for ourselves! And so sin broke that perfect community of worship between man and God. But, it did not change man's image, man still retains the image of God and still remains therefore a ceaseless worshiper, but now his worship is inverted, is misdirected, and now instead of pouring Himself out ceaselessly towards God in glory, he instead glorifies created things, and glorifies the ultimate idol, which is self.

But, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, we are not bound to that ceaseless, endless idolatry. Without Jesus Christ, the default mode of the human heart is idolatry. Idolatry is sin and sin is idolatry, they're one in the same thing. But, through Jesus Christ that right relationship can be restored; Jesus, who came as the ultimate worshiper and lived a life of perfect worship, ceaselessly glorifying His Father and proving that there was no defect in God's original work of Adam and Eve. And He took our sin upon Himself, He sacrificed Himself for us, so that we could be reoriented and we could know God again, and now He is the mediator and through Jesus we can now rightly give glory to God and that praise relationship can be restored in all of us.