Focus: Comfort Zone Worship

Text: Mt.15:8

"This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me."

Worship of the comfort zone is worship of convenience and compromise. It's worship with nothing at stake. It's worship in which mediocrity shines. It's worship in which faith is not stretched and the mind is not exercised. It's worship with little or no cost and with little or no effort. It's worship in which the flesh dominates and the spirit is silenced.

One of Mahatma Gandhi's Seven Blunders of the World is 'worship without sacrifice.' Comfort zone worship is worship in which sacrifice is absent. It is empty verbiage - no labor and no spirit. Gen.22:5 says, "And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will GO YONDER and WORSHIP, and come again to you." In our English translations, this is the place where the word 'worship' first occurs, but the Hebrew word used (shâchâh) occurs first in Gen.18:2, and there it is translated in the KJV as 'bowed.' 

Remember that Abraham was going to the divinely appointed place to sacrifice his son Isaac, yet, he told his servants that they were going to worship. So you can see the connection between worship and sacrifice, and that means that you cannot truly do one without the other. In the above verse we find the word 'yonder.' It means that the place of worship is yonder. It means that doing real worship demands that we go the extra mile. Ordinary worship is not enough. What is enough is extraordinary worship. Gen.22:4 says, "Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off." After three days journey to the place of worship, Abraham looked ahead and saw the place afar off. 

Worship as required by God stretches us. It sidelines the flesh and centralizes the spirit. God is worshipped as He wants, not as we wish. Worship must be done in God's own terms, not in ours.

Worship beyond the comfort zone is much more than what we say. Obedience to God is paramount. Worship that fails to honor God is worship by self and for self. It is mere religion. It is empty of substance. The Word says, "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mt.15:9).

Moses says to Pharaoh, "The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God" (Ex.3:18). 

Worship is for those who have met with God. The ordinary or natural person cannot truly worship.

Also, worship is a journey. It requires moving out of the flesh and into the spirit. Pharaoh persistently refused to let Israel travel out for worship, and Moses also insisted on what God wanted. Then Pharaoh soft pedaled and said, 'I grant you permission to worship your God, but you must do it here in the land.' Moses rejected his proposal because it went against the express will of God. Next, Pharaoh said, 'I permit you to go and worship your God, but you must not go very far away.' Next, Pharaoh said, 'Let only the men go.' He was trying to get Israel to compromise. Next, Pharaoh said, 'You can all go, but leave your belongings in the land.' 

Worship is a mighty weapon against the devil, and he hates to see you give God pure worship.

Let us get the response of Moses: "We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the LORD… Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the LORD our God. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither" (Ex.10:9,25-26). Nothing we possess should be left behind in our worship of God. It is in our comfort zones that we make compromises and deny God the honor due His name. Worship of the comfort zone is satisfying to the flesh because the cross is totally out of it. Comfort zone Christianity robs God of his glory.

Where true worship of God is concerned, we celebrate the grace of Christ, bow before the majesty of the Father, wonder at the mystery of God, enjoy the holy presence of the Holy Trinity, encounter the might of God, and receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Let's move out of our comfort zone and give our God the worship He truly deserves! Let's take the journey and pay the price! Let's keep nothing back! Let's not yield to the voices of convenience and compromise! Don't hearken to Pharaoh, nor surrender to his whims!

In closing, I wholeheartedly concur with Archbishop William Temple, who said that "to worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God," and none of these can take place within our comfort zones.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter