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Servant Worshiper Liturgizer

As often as we hear the term "servant" in Scripture such as:

Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins ... Psalm 19:13

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, James 1:1

And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. Luke 1:38

In such verses Servant = Worshiper. So that when James, e.g., calls himself a "servant of God" in the opening of his epistle he confesses himself, like Lydia of Acts 16:14 or Titus Justus of Acts 18:7, to be a "worshiper of the true God."

But the worship here referenced is not something abstract. Not merely a mindset, attitude or affection for God (though it includes that). But a servant of the Lord, is a worshiper of the Lord. That is, one who liturgizes God. But what does that mean?

The first thing we must know is that Jesus is the church's one, true Liturgist (cf. Hebrews 8:2); and that we liturgize God in, with and through him. Said another way: the Head never acts without the Body; the Groom without the Bride.

To liturgize implies the orderly and organized worship of God, it implies ritual; and all of God's people acting as one, and speaking the same divine words at the same time. ("The language of men and of angels" in St. Paul's argot). It is worship conducted: on earth, as it is in heaven. It requires a liturgy, not the spontaneous, haphazard, vapid event as is so common in our day.

To liturgize God means to fear him, to love him and to trust him above all things. It means to be in perfect filial submission to him. The one, true, perfect liturgy is accomplished by Jesus on the cross, who offers his life in perfect submission to the Father's will. We are incapabable of liturgizing God like that. Incapable, that is, except by faith! Except by baptism into Christ by which we, too, are crucified, dead, buried and raised again with him. Except by participation in the Eucharist which is the church's marital union with Christ, in which the "two become one flesh." This is very thing the Lord's people do every Lord's Day. They liturgize God in Christ and along with the entire church of heaven and earth. All together. Never alone. This is why sectarianism is so wrong. It shatters the "unity of the Spirit and the bond of Peace." "It puts asunder what God has joined together."

The servant, worshiper or liturgizer of God, then, also lives a liturgical life. A life of submission to God's holy word and will. He does not conform himself to the culture, but is transformed by the renewing of his mind. (Romans 12:2). He offers his body a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God. (Romans 12:1) He is salt and light, a city on a hill that cannot be hid.

This is what it means to be a Servant, Worshiper, or Liturgizer of God.

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