You are what you adore. It’s as simple as that. It defines us as humans, making us act strange at times. Worship is an interesting facet of human existence, seen today inside the church mainly as singing songs and outside the church as something that services do. The truth is that worship is instinctive in us humans, done by the most religious and the most irreligious without ceasing.

We are by nature doxological beings. Doxology = worship and veneration is the submission, affection and worship of something for its glorification. It’s built into our DNA, no one can help it, because we were created to worship. Pastor and author Mark Driscoll says, “We were created to worship God and create a culture where God is worshiped in all of life.” It’s our designed purpose, and something went terribly wrong.

The entry of sin into God’s perfect world through Adam and Eve’s sin removed worship from its rightful center in God and made it self-centered. Romans 1 describes this Tragic Exchange by saying that mankind “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images like mortal men, birds, animals, and reptiles” (Romans 1:23). Essentially, it is now naturally presupposed that we worship ourselves and the world around us instead of the original object of man’s worship, the Creator God. I would dare to say that the great madness of this man of doxological error. What we call “the human condition”. Idolatry.

In light of this, Driscoll goes on to say that “when idolatry is committed, all of life is implicated, harming individuals and societies.” Romans 1 explains why this is such a devastating problem and directly causes brokenness and external evil.

[24] Therefore God gave them over to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, [25] because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature before the Creator, blessed forever! Amen. [26] That is why God gave them up to shameful passions. Because his women exchanged natural relationships for those that are contrary to nature; [27] and likewise the men, leaving the natural relations with the women, consumed themselves in passion for one another, men committing shameful deeds with men, and receiving in themselves the retribution due to their error. [28] And since it did not seem right to them to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do what should not be done. [29] They were full of all kinds of injustice, wickedness, greed, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malignity. they are gossipy, [30] slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, [31] foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. [32] Although they know of God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them, but they give their approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:24-32 NIV)

You see here that the theme of worship does not stay at home. Enter the world at war with God’s truth, which God established for harmony, but due to idolatry (wrong worship), the world is now the disharmony Earth we live on.

What is at the root of this? How did we get to this? I dare say that the issue is completely rooted in the theology. Listen to me, Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, we all know this, but you may not realize that the sin was committed intellectually before Eve touched the apple. Check it out:

[The Fall] [3:1] Now the serpent was more cunning than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He told the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” [2] And the woman said to the serpent: Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, [3] but God said: You shall not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. [4] But the serpent said to the woman: “You will certainly not die. [5] For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” [6] And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable for wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate, and also gave a little to her husband who was with her. her, and ate. (Genesis 3:1-6 NIV)

Do you see what happened here? Not only did she disobey because she was a punk, but she reasoned with herself about what God had revealed to her. She worshiped herself, she served herself instead of God by indulging. Essentially believing a lie about God on a theological level. This theology gave way to an identity built on the works done by Man and Woman (rebellion) instead of God. The theological here instantly gives way to biological change in the male and female, making rebellion the default mode, because that is the lens through which they understand God.

So the problem is that this is now the nature of man. Romans 3:23 correctly depicts the human condition when Paul states that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). This has resulted in a world that lives in disharmony, trying to appease the gods of self, success, sex, money, approval and religion by offering sacrifices of time, money and happiness in cruel and self-deprecating acts of worship to Ruthless gods who can, by nature, never appease.

Oh shit. We are in a bind if this is true. And this is the context of the gospel, that the good news is better than all the bad news that I have just reported to you. God did not abandon man after sin, he promised reconciliation (Gn 3,15) and in Christ he has given just that. Jesus is God, who came to earth 2,000 years ago and lived a life in which he simply worshiped God the Father for approximately 33 years (Hebrews 4:15). Going around teaching about God and how he is angry with idolatry and how the punishment for idolatry is death, but also how God is like a father who loves his children and wants to be with them (Matthew 7: 7- eleven). What a great juxtaposition, how is that possible? by the cross Jesus was executed on the Cross, despite living the perfect life that neither you nor I are capable of. But what happened on the Cross is the lynchpin of human history (Colossians 1:20). God punished man’s sins on the Cross. Jesus suffered the Hell we have earned. In return, by grace through faith, God’s sinful children are counted as perfect as Jesus (Ephesians 2:1-10, 2 Cor 5:21, Hosea 2:23).

There is a theology you can hang your hat on. And a God worthy of worship.