Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your
food and water. I will take away sickness from among you,
Exodus 23:25 | NIV | blessing My mouth is filled with your praise,declaring your splendor all day long.
Psalms 71:8 | NIV | speaking
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit
and in truth.
John 4:24 | NIV | truthSpirit
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the
Lord.
Psalms 150:6 | NIV
a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed
to God
What is Prayer? – Talking With God
What is prayer? Prayer is our direct line with heaven.
Prayer is a communication process that allows us to talk to God! He wants us to
communicate with Him, like a person-to-person phone call. Cell phones and other
devices have become a necessity to some people in today’s society. We have
bluetooth devices, blackberries, and talking computers! These are means of
communication that allow two or more people to interact, discuss, and respond
to one another.
To many people, prayer seems complicated, but it is simply
talking to God. Here are some points about what prayer is:
What is Prayer? – The Logistics
Many people question what is prayer because they desire to
pray, but don’t know how. Consider these tips:
Ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins and make you new in
Him! “Now turn from your sins and turn to God, so you can be cleansed of your
sins” (Acts 3:19).
Tell Him your needs! “Give all your worries and cares to
God, for he cares about what happens to you” (1 Peter 5:7).
Thank Him, for He died on the cross at Calvary for us! “For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes
in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
How Do I Say It? Here’s how I have learned to approach the
Savior of my life.
With confidence and belief that He will deliver: “Because of
Christ and our faith in him, we can now come fearlessly into God's presence,
assured of his glad welcome” (Ephesians 3:12). “So let us come boldly to the
throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find
grace to help us when we need it” (Hebrews 4:16).
With joy that He can deliver. “You have shown me the way of
life, and you will give me wonderful joy in your presence” (Acts 2:28).
With expectation that He is going to deliver. “Listen to my
voice in the morning, LORD. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait
expectantly” (Psalm 5:3). “I am praying to you because I know you will answer,
O God. Bend down and listen as I pray” (Psalm 17:6).
What is Prayer? - What Does the Bible Say?
Pray for each other. Jesus set an example for us on what to
pray. He prayed for His disciples and for every generation to come that would
follow Him. His prayer was that God protect and strengthen them as long as they
were in this world. Jesus also prayed for those who would come to believe in
Him through the Gospel message (John 17).
Pray with faith. “So, you see, it is impossible to please
God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a
God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Pray with worship and reverence. “Exalt the LORD our God!
Bow low before his feet, for he is holy!” (Psalm 99:5). “‘Yes, Lord,’ the man
said, ‘I believe!’ And he worshiped Jesus” (John 9:38).
You will know with confidence that God can hear you when you
pray, so open that line of communication! Pray, knowing that no matter how far
you roam, your connection with Him can never be lost!
“I pray that your love for each other will overflow more and
more, and that you will keep on growing in your knowledge and understanding”
(Philippians 1:9).
My father regularly read Psalm 96:9 in our evening services:
"O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the
earth" (KJV). The Book of Psalms is filled with hundreds of poetic anthems
used in the religious celebrations of the children of Israel that clearly
instructed them (and us) how to worship God. Yet, even though I heard the word
worship in conversation, testimonies, songs, and Scripture, I didn't completely
understand what it meant.
The Priority of Worship
Worship is not the slow song that the choir sings. Worship
is not the amount you place in the offering basket. Worship is not volunteering
in children's church. Yes, these may be acts or expressions of worship, but
they do not define what true worship really is. There are numerous definitions
of the word worship. Yet, one in particular encapsulates the priority we should
give to worship as a spiritual discipline: Worship is to honor with extravagant
love and extreme submission (Webster's Dictionary,1828).
True worship, in other words, is defined by the priority we
place on who God is in our lives and where God is on our list of priorities.
True worship is a matter of the heart expressed through a lifestyle of
holiness. Thus, if your lifestyle does not express the beauty of holiness
through an extravagant or exaggerated love for God, and you do not live in
extreme or excessive submission to God, then I invite you to make worship a
non-negotiable priority in your life.
What Is Worship? A Survey of Scripture
Many Christian churches have changed their worship styles.
As is often the case with experiences, we have different impressions and
reactions to worship styles. In this article, we examine what the Bible says
about worship. Let's look at the way God’s people worshiped before Moses, after
Moses, and after Jesus. Then let's see how that biblical insight can help
inform our worship in the modern world.
Definitions
The Bible doesn’t give a formal definition of worship. But
perhaps we can start by seeing what various words for worship mean. The English
word "worship" comes from two Old English words: weorth, which means
"worth," and scipe or ship, which means something like shape or
"quality." We can see the Old English word -ship in modern words like
friendship and sportsmanship – that’s the quality of being a friend, or the
quality of being a good sport.
So worth-ship is the quality of having worth or of being
worthy. When we worship, we are saying that God has worth, that he is worthy.
Worship means to declare worth, to attribute worth. Or to put it in biblical
terms, we praise God. We speak, or sing, about how good and powerful God is.
This is a purpose for which we are called: "You are a
chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,
that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his
wonderful light" (1 Peter 2:9). We were called for the purpose of praising
God, worshiping God. That is one of the job descriptions of a Christian. We
should declare that God is worthy, worth more than everything else put
together.
Now let’s look at the biblical words. In both Hebrew and
Greek, there are two major kinds of words for worship. The first kind means to
bow down, to kneel, to put one’s face down as an act of respect and submission.
Our body language is saying, I will do whatever you want me to. I am ready to
listen to your instructions and I am willing to obey. The other kind of
biblical word means to serve. Roughly half of the time these words are
translated as worship, and the other half as serve. It carries the idea of
doing something for God — making a sacrifice or carrying out his instructions.
Of course, word meanings don’t prove what worship is, but
they do illustrate three kinds of worship. There is
worship that involves speaking, and
worship that involves listening, and
a worship that involves doing.
There is a worship that expresses the heart, and worship that
involves the mind, and a worship that involves the body. There is a worship
that is giving praise upward, a worship that is receiving instructions from
above, and a worship that carries out instruction in the world around us.
We need all three types of worship. Some people focus
primarily on speaking or singing praise to God. Praise is good, but if all we
do is praise God, without ever listening to what he says, we have to ask
whether we believe the words we are saying. If he is really all wise and all
loving, then we need to be attentive to what he is telling us, because he is
worth listening to.
Similarly, all talk and no action does not show God the
respect he deserves. Actions speak louder than words, and if our behavior isn’t
changed by God, then our actions are saying that God isn’t important — he’s a
nice idea, but not relevant to our day-to-day lives. When we really believe
that God is worthy of every praise, then we will be willing to listen and to
change the way we live in response to such a worthy God. We will trust him and
seek him and want to please him as much as we can. Worship should affect our
behavior.
Response with all our being
Another preliminary point is that worship is a response to
God. We can’t know God’s worth, much less declare it, unless God reveals
himself to us. So God initiates worship by revealing himself to us. Then we
respond, and the proper response is worship. The more we grasp his greatness,
his power, his love, his character, the more we understand his worthiness, the
better we can declare his worth – the better we can worship.
Our worship is a response to what God has revealed himself
to be, not only in who he is, but also in what he has done and is doing and
will do in the future. Worship includes all our responses to God – including a
response with our mind, such as our belief in God’s worthiness, our emotions,
such as love and trust, and our actions and our words. Our heart expresses
itself in words and songs; our mind is active when we want to learn what God wants
us to do, and our bodies and strength are involved when we obey and when we
serve.
Both Old Testament and New Testament tell us that our
relationship with God should involve our heart, mind, soul, and strength. It
involves all that we are. Worship involves heart, mind, soul and strength, too.
The fact that we believe God says something about his
worthiness. The fact that we trust him and love him declares that he is worthy
of love and trust. The fact that we obey him also says that he has worth. Our words
complete the picture by saying that God has worth. In the words we say to one
another, in the prayers we say to God, in the songs we sing, we can declare
that God is worth more than all other gods, worth more than all other things.
We can worship God all by ourselves. But it is also
something we do together. God has revealed himself not just to me, but to many
people. God puts us in a community, he reveals himself to a community and
through a community, and the community together responds to him in worship, in
declaring that he is worth all honor and praise.
Moreover, God promises that whenever we gather in Jesus’
name, he will be there. We gather in his presence, and because of his promise,
we expect him to be with us. He is the One who calls us together, who reveals
himself to us, who initiates the worship and is the object of our worship.
One important method we use to worship God is that of music.
In church, we have someone called a worship leader, who leads us in singing
hymns and spiritual songs. So a worship leader is a song leader, and because of
that some people automatically think of music when they hear the word worship.
Music is important, but worship is not just music – it
involves our entire relationship with God, all our heart, mind, soul, and
strength – it involves all the ways in which we can respond to God, all the
ways we can praise him by what we say and do, all the ways we can demonstrate
that God is worthy of all praise and honor and allegiance.
Worship before the time of Moses
If we survey the Bible, we will see a wide variety of
methods that God’s people have used to worship him and express their devotion
to him. Some of these methods were done by specific command from God; others
seem to have been the choice of the persons involved. We see this pattern
throughout the Bible: some things are commanded and some things are optional.
We don’t have to read the Bible very far before we encounter
a story about worship. Genesis 4 tells us that Cain and Abel brought an
offering to the Lord. We aren’t told why – we are just told that they did it. A
few chapters later, we read that Noah built an altar after the Flood, and he
sacrificed some animals.
Later, Abraham made sacrifices. He built an altar at
Shechem, another at Bethel, then at Hebron, and at Mount Moriah. As part of his
worship, Abraham also prayed, circumcised and tithed. Isaac built an altar at
Beersheba and he prayed. Jacob set up a stone pillar at Bethel and poured a
drink offering on it, and he poured oil on it as some sort of worship. He built
an altar at Shechem, and one at Bethel. He vowed to tithe and he prayed. What
conclusions can we draw from this?
First, no one needed a priest. Everyone built their own
altars, sacrificed their own animals and did their own worship. The head of the
household acted as the religious leader for the family. We see that in the book
of Job, too: Job made sacrifices on behalf of his children. There was no
special priesthood. Each person could worship without a priest.
Second, there aren’t many commands about the worship that
the patriarchs did. God sometimes told his people where to build an altar and
what to offer, but for the most part, the altars and offerings seem to have
been initiated by the people. There’s no mention of special times or special
days or special seasons. There doesn’t seem to be any restriction on place,
either. The patriarchs stayed away from Baal worship, but other than that, they
worshiped the true God wherever and whenever and however they wanted.
Third, not much is said about method – the people could pour
out wine or oil, totally incinerate an animal, or roast it and eat part of it.
Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not limited by time, location or
method. The key word is flexibility. The detailed rules that God gave through
Moses did not apply to the patriarchs. They were not restricted by rules about
special places, people, rituals and days.
One thing was important – probably the greatest commandment
about worship, the most important rule about worship no matter who we are or
when we live. The first and greatest commandment is this: You shall worship no
other gods.
When God dealt with Jacob, he was not concerned about how he
was worshiped – his primary concern was that Jacob worship the true God and no
other gods. God demands exclusive worship, 100 percent allegiance. Only that
can do justice to his worth. There’s no room for loving any other gods even 1
percent. We cannot allow anything to get in the way of our worship relationship
with God. We cannot let money, self-consciousness, busyness or anything else
get in the way. Worship is to be our highest priority.
Moses and the tabernacle
In the days of Moses, worship went from very little
structure to very specific and very detailed structure. God specified exactly
when sacrifices were to be made,
how they were to be made,
where they were to be made, and
who was supposed to make them.
Worship became much more formal. Under the law of Moses,
there were holy places, holy people, holy animals, holy rituals, and holy
times. God designated certain things for certain uses in worship.
The tabernacle was a holy place. Wherever it was, it marked
off holy space. It was somewhat holy in the outer court, more holy in the inner
court, and extremely holy behind the veil. The design of the tabernacle
communicated something important about God: that he was holy. You just can’t
walk up on him every day. You had to be a very holy person on a very holy day
in order to walk into the Holy of Holies, and you had to go through special
rituals in order to do it. The tabernacle was a symbolic message about God.
The tabernacle pictured God’s holiness, but it also pictured
that he was not some far-off God. No – he was in the camp of Israel. When the
Israelites broke camp and the tabernacle was dismantled, the ark of the
covenant could be seen. People knew what it was, but when the tabernacle was
set up, it was hidden. Close, but not accessible. Although God was near, he was
also holy and off-limits, and people could come to him only by using proper
channels.
For worship in ancient Israel, there were holy people. The
Levites were holy and assigned to work with the tabernacle. There was a
priesthood between the people and God. For many acts of worship, the priests
had to perform the actions. There were also holy animals and holy plants. Every
firstborn animal was holy, dedicated to the Lord. The first-ripe fruits were
holy, set apart for worship. There was a holy incense formula, too, and if
anyone made the same formula, they were supposed to be expelled from the
nation. It was that special. It was reserved for worship. It was holy.
There were holy times. Every week, one day was holy. Every
year, some extra days were holy. Every seven years and every 50 years, a whole
year was set apart for special use. These designated times gave structure to
the Israelite worship. The who, the what, the when, and the where were all
spelled out. Everything was structured, organized, formalized.
Most of those details are obsolete, but the most important
principle carries over into today’s worship, too. Only God should be worshiped.
It’s not that he should be worshiped more than other gods are. It’s that he is
the only God worthy of worship. He is so great, nothing else is even close.
There is no god like our God. Nothing can compare with him, so we give him
exclusive worship. We do not divide our loyalties between him and Baal, or
between him and Mammon, or between him and self. All allegiance and all worship
go to him alone.
A matter of the heart
In the Law of Moses, it is easy to be distracted by all the
detailed worship regulations, but that is not the real focus. All those details
were given in order to serve a larger purpose, and that is God. Our focus
should be on God, and the same was true for the ancient Israelites. They were
to focus on God.
Worship in ancient Israel was not just at the tabernacle –
it was also in the heart and in the home. God did not want people to think that
they could do the rituals and then live as they please. It was not enough to
"do" the worship – a person’s honor and respect for God should be
genuine, in the heart, which meant that God was to be praised in all of life.
In Deuteronomy 6, Moses told the Israelites to put God’s
instructions in their hearts, and teach them to their children, to talk about
them when they sat, when they walked, and when they lay down. They were to
write these instructions on the doorposts, to immerse themselves in God’s way
of life. All of life is worship.
Some of the later prophets build on this theme. Samuel told
Saul that obedience is better than sacrifice. God wants a right attitude more
than he wants correct rituals. In Jeremiah 7:22, God says, I didn’t bring you
out of Egypt because I wanted sacrifices. I just wanted you to obey me, and
sacrifices are only a tiny part of what I commanded.
Isaiah is even stronger – saying, in effect, "I’m sick
of your sacrifices. I’m sick of your sabbaths and holy days." Here is
Isaiah 1:11-17: "I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and
goats.... Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to
me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates.... When you
spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you
offer many prayers, I will not listen." The people were doing rituals,
bringing animals, keeping Sabbaths and festivals, even praying, but despite all
that, there was something seriously lacking in their worship.
Why didn’t God like their worship? He does not say they were
keeping the wrong days or doing the rituals incorrectly. The problem was that
their lives were full of sin. So Isaiah counsels: "Your hands are full of
blood; wash and make yourselves clean.... Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!
Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow."
Their sacrifices, prayers and praises were not accompanied
by performance in their day-to-day lives. They had worship rituals, but they
did not obey God’s commands for how to treat their neighbors, and the result
was unacceptable worship. As Jesus said, quoting Isaiah 29:13, their worship
was in vain. It was hypocritical to do the worship if it wasn’t changing the
other aspects of their lives.
For worship to be acceptable to God, we must have obedient
lives. The ritual is not enough – the attitude is what is most important. God
does not want hypocritical worship, people who say he is great but do not act
like it. Perhaps this is commandment number 2 regarding worship – that it must
be sincere. If we are going to say that God is worthy of all worship, then we
should believe it in our hearts, and if we believe it, it will show in our
actions. Real worship changes everything we do, because it changes who we are.
Worship must be in the heart, not just at the place of worship.
Micah tells us this: "With what shall I come before the
Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt
offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of
rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn child?... He
has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To
act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:6-8).
We do not have to have a perfect life. David did not have a
sinless life, yet overall, he pleased God. His attitude was right, and that’s
the kind of worship God wants most. God even used David in two major
developments in Israelite worship.
Music at the temple
Many know that David initiated the building of the Temple, a
"permanent" place for worship. But David’s other contribution has
lasted even longer than the Temple did. That is in the area of music. David had
a background in music. As a shepherd, he played the lyre, a simple stringed
instrument. He composed music and sang about God. He worshiped God while he
took care of his sheep – it was worship on the job. David’s songs are called
psalms. That comes from the Greek word psallo, which means "to pluck a
string." Psalms is a book of songs for stringed instruments. We can
worship God with songs and musical instruments.
David didn’t write all the psalms. Some were written
centuries later. But David got the psalm-book started, and he organized the way
that music is used in worship. He assigned some of the Levites to be worship
musicians (1 Chron. 23:5; 25:1-8). Music became a permanent part of worship.
Psalms come in a wide variety. Some are historical,
reminding us of God’s great works in creation, in the Exodus, in giving the
Israelites the land. Some psalms offer praise. Other express thanksgiving, or
ask for God’s help. Some express adoration, ask questions, or complain to God
about suffering. The mood ranges from anguish to hope, fear to joy, anger to
pride. These songs may have begun as private prayers, but they became prayers
in which all the people could join in. The people became participants in these
worship songs.
All the psalms are worship – even the psalms that complain.
The fact that our questions and complaints are directed to God shows something
about our relationship to him. All of life is in his hands, in his control. The
psalms show our dependence on him.
The psalms are often in the form of a prayer, in words
spoken to God. He is the audience, and the people are the participants, the
worshipers. These songs are memorized prayers, since they are spoken to God.
Some people think that Christians shouldn’t have memorized prayers. But we
actually have several of them during worship services every week. We just have
them with a melody, and that is a legitimate form of worship. Even without the
melody, a recited prayer can be a legitimate form of worship.
Psalm 150 points out a variety of worship methods:
"Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty
heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing
greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the
harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the
strings and flute, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with
resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord."
We might find some of these worship methods unusual today,
but all these artistic expressions are permissible when they are done to the
glory of God. The main principle of worship is that we worship only God, and
that we really mean it.
Synagogue worship
After the temple was destroyed and Jews were scattered
throughout the Middle East, a new format for worship was developed. In the
synagogue, the focus was on Scripture, not on sacrifices. It was a much simpler
format.
Synagogue services typically began with praises and prayers.
There were standard prayers and benedictions, some of them used every week. The
Scriptures would be read, translated when necessary, and explained in some sort
of sermon. We can see glimpses of this in the New Testament, but the best
description is in Nehemiah 8. Under the leadership of Ezra, some of the Jews
had come back to Jerusalem.
"Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built
for the occasion.... [today we might call it a pulpit] Ezra opened the book
[the Law of Moses]. All the people could see him because he was standing above
them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the
great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, ‘Amen! Amen!’
Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the
ground" (vv. 4-6).
Have you ever seen that kind of response in a modern church
service – people lifting their hands, saying Amen, and bowing down? If it’s a
genuine response to God, it is a good response. They listened with great
respect, with a willingness to obey. "The Levites...instructed the people
in the Law while the people were standing there. They read from the Book of the
Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand
what was being read" (vv. 7-8). Synagogue worship followed in this
pattern, with a focus on Scripture.
Even though the Temple was eventually rebuilt, the public
reading of Scripture in synagogues continued to be an important part of Jewish
worship. Most Jews could not go to the temple every week. But with a synagogue,
they could gather for worship every Sabbath, with prayers, songs, and
Scripture.
One result of this was a new focus for the Sabbath. Even in
the days of David, most Israelites could not go to Jerusalem every week. The
focus of Sabbath-keeping was therefore on rest, as commanded in Scripture. But
when synagogues became common, the Sabbath was also seen as a day of
participating in worship. Laymen had a greater role in worship – they could do
every portion of the synagogue service. People could worship without a temple,
without priests, and without sacrifices.
Jesus
Now let’s survey the New Testament. What did Jesus do in
worship, and what did he say about worship? We may begin by noting that he grew
up in Galilee. Although he went to Jerusalem for annual festivals, most of his
worship was done away from the temple. We are told that he went to the
synagogue, where he would read and explain Scripture. He prayed, in private and
in public, and he sang songs.
Jesus would have been involved in some rituals, such as
killing a Passover lamb every year. He taught in the temple and chased
moneychangers out of it because he wanted the place to be worshipful, a place
of prayer. But Jesus also predicted the destruction of the temple. It was not
necessary for worship.
The Gospels’ most direct teaching about worship is in John
4. This is set in the context of the centuries-old Jewish-Samaritan squabble
about the correct place of worship. The woman said, "Our fathers worshiped
on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in
Jerusalem." Jesus replied, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when
you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem"
(vv. 20-21). In other words, location will not be important. Worship will not
be associated with any particular spot.
Jesus added, "You Samaritans worship what you do not
know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is
coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in
spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is
spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth" (vv.
22-24).
God seeks people who will worship him. Worship is something
he wants. He knows it is good for us to worship him. In speaking of
"spirit and truth," Jesus is echoing the prophets: worship must be
sincere. External things don’t matter if the heart isn’t right. It doesn’t do
us any good to worship at the right place or with the right rituals if our
attitude isn’t right. We can sing the right songs and hold our hands in the
right way, but if our heart isn’t in it, it isn’t really worship.
Jesus criticized the Pharisees, quoting Isaiah, when he said,
"These people worship me in vain; they honor me with their lips, but their
hearts are far from me." They are hypocrites, he said. (Matt.15:8). They
said the right things, but they didn’t believe them. God does not want
hypocritical worship — he wants sincere worship. We aren’t supposed to fake it.
We need to believe the praises we say, and if we really believe them, our lives
will show it.
Externals are not primary, but if our hearts are right, then
we will have externals. Rituals are not primary, but we do have rituals. Jesus
himself gave us some, and it is inevitable that people will also develop some
customs in their worship. But the focus should be sincere praise for God.
The early church
Acts 2 tells us how worship was done among the people who
saw Jesus’ example and followed it. "Those who accepted his message were
baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. They devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and to prayer" (vv. 41-42). This is their response to God, their
devotion, their worship: they accepted the message — they believed, they were
repentant, they were baptized — and they devoted themselves to
being taught,
sharing with one another,
breaking bread, and
prayer.
Luke is giving a summary description, not a formula for
worship services.
"Every day they continued to meet together in the
temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and
sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people"
(vv. 46-47). They worshipped in the temple, and they worshipped in their homes.
They praised God, they were happy, and they were sincere.
Apparently many of the Jewish Christian in Judea continued
to participate in the temple rituals until the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70
(Acts 21:20-26). Christian faith did not require them to abandon the rituals –
but neither did the rituals seem to help them in their faith.
When we examine worship customs, we need to distinguish
between what is required, what is permissible, and what is helpful. Few things
are required, and few things are forbidden. The many things in between are
permissible – if they are done for the glory of God. Luke doesn’t tell us much
more about worship. To learn more about worship, we turn next to the writings
of Paul.
Paul’s words for worship
Paul is a primary source for what first-century churches did
and how they operated. But Paul says very little about worship. Words for
worship are found only a few times in Paul’s letters. He doesn’t tell us how we
should worship. Perhaps that is because Paul sees worship as something we are
to do all the time. John Piper expressed it in this way: "What we find in
the New Testament, perhaps to our amazement, is an utterly stunning degree of
indifference to worship as an outward ritual, and an utterly radical
intensification of worship as an inward experience of the heart…. The very
epistles that are written to help the church be what it ought to be in this age
[are] almost totally devoid of…explicit teaching on the specifics of corporate
worship" (http://www.soundofgrace.com/ piper97/11-09-97.htm).
Of course, the New Testament clearly tells us that
Christians meet together regularly. It gives us commands regarding meeting
together regularly. And if we are worshipping in all aspects of life, we will
certainly worship when we get together. Paul uses worship-related words in some
surprising ways. Romans 12:1 is one of the better-known uses: "I urge you,
brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship."
Worship is the giving of our entire self, our thoughts and
our emotions, to God’s use. All of life is an act of submission, an act of
worship. Our service to God is not centered on a time or a temple, but is done
whenever and wherever we are, because we are the temple of God. The emphasis is
taken away from ceremony, seasons, places and rituals, and is shifted to what
is happening in the inner person. Worship should invade our entire lives. The
test of worship is not only what happens at church, but what happens at home,
on the job and wherever we go.
Paul used another word for worship in Romans 1:9: "I
serve [latreuo, one of the Greek words for worship] God with my whole
heart." How? "…in preaching the gospel of his Son." A similar
thought is in Romans 15:16: "God gave me the grace to be a minister of
Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel
of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God,
sanctified by the Holy Spirit."
In these verses, preaching the gospel is an act of worship.
Paul was not a Levite, but he had a priestly duty, and that was to worship with
all his heart by preaching. In our worship services today, the sermon is just
as much a part of the worship as the songs are. Whenever the gospel is
preached, worship is being done. God’s greatness is being proclaimed. Worship
is in the listening, too, as people seek to learn what God wants us to be
doing. A worshipful attitude toward God is one that respectfully listens to
what he may be saying to us.
Every act of obedience is an act of worship. It declares
that God has worth. And whenever we share the gospel with someone, we are
declaring God’s worth. We are engaging in the priestly service of preaching the
gospel, the worship of being a witness to God’s grace. We tell what a great
thing God has done in Jesus Christ, and how that has been good news in our
life. We are declaring his worth. We are giving worship in everyday life. We
don’t have to wait for a church service.
We get our English word "liturgy" from the Greek
word leitourgia. In the Greek Old Testament and in pagan Greek literature, it
refers to public works of worship. But Paul used it in a different context — an
offering of money — money to be used in helping other Christians in famine
relief, or money to be used in helping spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Romans 15:27 uses this word: "If the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’
spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to minister to them" —
literally, to give liturgy to them — "with material blessings." Paul
uses this word for worship to describe financial help. This seemingly ordinary
service to the saints was actually an act of worship, a religious activity.
We see a similar thing in Philippians 4:18, which Paul wrote
after receiving financial help from the Christians in Philippi: "I have
received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have
received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an
acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God." And in 2 Corinthians 9:12, he
wrote, "This service – this liturgy – that you perform is not only
supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions
of thanks to God." The people were worshipping with their money, which we
can do with our offerings today, as well.
Hebrews 13 combines two New Testament forms of worship.
"Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of
praise — the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good
and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased" (vv.
15-16). Some worship is given in words of praise, and some worship is given to
God when we help one another.
In the old covenant, God required the Israelites to serve
him through a priesthood, a sacrificial system and a temple. In the new
covenant, all believers are priests, all believers offer sacrifices all the
time, and we as a body of people are the temple of God. Worship is dramatically
different. The ministry of worship has been given to all the people.
Devotion
Historically, several types of devotion have been recognized
as important in a person’s spiritual maturity. The top two are prayer and Bible
study. These have demonstrated their value time and time again in the lives of
millions of Christians of all denominational affiliations. If we want spiritual
health, we need a good spiritual diet, and these disciplines are helpful. They don’t
guarantee spiritual growth, but they do provide an environment in which growth
can occur more readily.
If we are in poor spiritual health, we need to check
ourselves: Are we doing the things that Christians throughout the centuries
have found helpful? We’d like to have quick fixes, like an easy-to-swallow pill
that puts us right, but there aren’t any shortcuts like that. We may be able to
get away with a junk-food diet for a while, but eventually we are going to feel
some negative results, and we can’t expect one week of good food to restore us
to excellent health. It requires a long-term commitment for slow, almost
imperceptible improvement, and the same is true for spiritual health. There are
no quick fixes, no magic potions. It requires a long-term commitment and some
sacrifices.
God doesn’t give us rules about prayer and Bible study. He
doesn’t say 30 minutes a day or 90 minutes a day. We have to make our own
decisions, and what’s right for you isn’t necessarily right for me. But we each
have to make spiritual health a priority in our lives.
Of course, we do not worship entirely on our own, each going
our separate way. The New Testament picture is that we regularly get together –
and when we gather, we will worship. That’s what we do all day long, so how
much more will we do it when we gather together! But our gatherings are not the
only place we worship. True worship is in the heart, and in its outward
expression it can take place in the home, on the job, and in the church.
Worship services
In our worship services today, where is the worship? It’s in
the songs, in the sermon, and in the attentiveness that we have in listening to
the sermon. But there is also worship in the work that goes on behind the
scenes. People who get the building ready may be making sacrifices to God that
are pleasing to him. Those who help with refreshments may worship as they work.
When we do good and share with others, we are giving the kind of worship that
God wants.
People who work with children are worshiping as they help
children understand the good news about Jesus Christ. In their actions and in
their words, they are praising God. They are showing that he changes our lives,
and he changes our priorities. We no longer live to please ourselves, but to
serve others. This is a form of worship.
During the time of the apostles, what happened in church
meetings? We don’t know for sure. Neither Luke nor Paul gives us a complete
description. However, we have some glimpses. We saw in Acts that prayer,
teaching and fellowship are involved. Other verses talk about songs, too.
Colossians 3:16 tells us the early church sang in their worship: "Let the
word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with
all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in
your hearts to God." Ephesians 5:19 is similar: "Speak to one another
with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to
the Lord."
Prayer was also part of the worship. It was mentioned in
Acts 2, and it’s supported by 1 Timothy 2. What kind of prayers were these? Did
everyone say the same prayer in unison, like Jews in the synagogues did? Or did
they just take turns, each saying a prayer out loud? We do not know. Either way
would be possible.
Scripture reading was probably an important part of the
church meeting, since it had been an important part of the synagogue service.
In addition to this, the New Testament admonishes believers to stick to the
apostles’ doctrine, to the standard of teaching, to the word of life, to the
words of faith, to good doctrine and sound words, to sound teaching and the
faith once delivered. These are different ways of saying that doctrine was
important to the New Testament church. It was important to teach and learn
certain truths.
One of the longest passages about church meetings is in 1
Corinthians 14. Some unusual things were happening in the church at Corinth,
and Paul had to give them some guidance about it. Most of the chapter is trying
to bring some control to a situation that had gotten out of control. Paul
summarized their situation and provided a focus in verse 26: "What then
shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word
of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must
be done for the strengthening of the church."
The church meeting included songs, teaching, and the use of
spiritual gifts. Of all the things Paul mentions, what is the most important?
Notice what he says in the last part of verse 26: That all "must be done
for the strengthening of the church." In verse 31 he says the goal is
"so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged."
That’s the priority: Everything should be done in such a way
that the church is instructed, edified, built up, strengthened. It doesn’t
matter how many songs we sing or what spiritual gifts we have — if we aren’t
helping anybody, we are missing the point of gathering together. Songs, sermon,
and service: All three are forms of worship, and all three are important.
Worship today
Worship involves our entire relationship with God: our
words, our attitudes, and our actions. Our words may be normal conversation,
songs or prayers. In any style of speaking, we can declare God’s praises and
express our faith reliance on him.
God wants worship not only on our lips, but also in our
hearts. He wants our worship to be sincere — he wants to be the most important
thing in our lives, that we are truly submissive to him. He wants our worship
to affect our behavior, that we make sacrifices, that we put to death the deeds
of selfishness, that we seek justice, be merciful and humble, and help others.
He wants us not just to obey him, but to serve in ways that go beyond specific
commands. We are to worship wherever we go, doing all things to God’s glory,
praying always, giving thanks always, never ceasing to be a temple of the Holy
Spirit. Our worship involves how we work, how we drive, and how we choose what
to watch on television.
There are also actions that are more specifically times of
worship. We might call these private devotions, or spiritual disciplines. These
are habits and actions of worship we do individually, as opposed to worship
when we gather as a church.
Worship is not restricted to a specific place and time. The
best thing that has ever happened to us is that we have God in our lives. The
best thing that’s happened to us this week is that we have God in our lives. We
have reason to celebrate all the time. When we live each day praising God in
our hearts, it is natural that we praise God when we gather together, when we
speak to one another about the best thing that’s ever happened to us. We
worship all the time, but we also worship together at specific times at
meetings designated for that specific purpose.
What’s involved in our worship services?
Our first act of worship is gathering together. Simply by
gathering, we are showing that God has worth. Where two or three are gathered
in his name, he will be present in a special way. When we gather, we gather in
the presence of God. As the Old Testament says, we appear before the Lord. It’s
like an ancient throne room, and we are invited to be with him.
In our worship services, we want God to be present. We
specifically ask him to be present. He promises to be present. And if we are
sincere about this, we should expect him to be present. And when we sing in
God’s presence, we are singing to him. It’s not just a song about God — it is a
song to God. These are words spoken to him. Like many of the psalms, the hymns
we sing are often prayers set to music. He is the audience; we are the
participants.
Like the psalms, our music comes in a wide variety. Some
songs express positive emotions, such as adoration, praise, thanksgiving,
confidence, faith, joy or excitement. We should always be happy that God is in
our life. Even when we have trials, we are to rejoice. The psalms tell us to
come before him and rejoice, to praise the Lord, to sing a new song unto the
Lord. Praise him in the heights. Praise him, praise him, praise him. Our joy in
him should spill over into praises. Our worship should be dominated by praise.
But joy is not the only legitimate emotion we can have with
God. The psalms also have prayers of confession and supplication. Some of our
hymns are more meditative than celebrative. Some ask questions, some express
sorrow, or anguish or fear. All of these are legitimate emotions we can sing
about.
Our worship services usually contain several prayers, too.
They include praise, usually a request, sometimes a confession. When someone
near the beginning of services asks God to be in the service, to inspire the
service, this is something we all want. We join in the prayer not as an
audience, but as participants. When we say "amen," we are saying,
That’s my prayer, too. I want God to be here, too.
When we express our dependence on God, when we give all our
requests to him, it shows his worth. When we want to be in his presence, it
shows that he is good. When we confess our sins to him, it shows his greatness.
When we give him thanks and praise, it exalts him and glorifies him. We worship
when we participate in the prayers.
A fourth major part of our worship service is the sermon.
The sermon is a communication of God’s word to us. It explains to us what God’s
will is for our life. We expect God to speak to us through his Word, by
inspiring the speaker, and we listen for what God is telling us. God’s truth
affects our lives and our hearts. It affects real life, and it demands a
heart-felt response. The sermon should therefore appeal to our mind and to our
emotions.
In the sermon, we are not just an audience — we should also
be participants. We should actively think about the Scriptures, think about the
sermon, think about what it means in our lives. This isn’t just information
about God — it is information about how God wants to change our lives. Part of
our worship, part of our respectful response to God, is listening for what he
wants to teach us and how he wants to change us.
We have to listen with the expectation that the sermon contains
something God wants to tell us. It may be different for you than it is for me.
The point is that we have to participate in the listening. Just as we
participate in the music, and we participate in the prayers, we are all
supposed to participate in the sermon, too.
As we listen, we should also be ready to respond to the
message. The response can come in many different forms, depending on the
message we have heard. One way to respond is to do what God is telling us to
do. Some people are doing this by serving in various capacities within the
church. Others respond with service outside of the church, and some may respond
by telling others how good and great God is — worshiping him by doing the
priestly duty of sharing the good news of salvation — and hopefully all these
responses will be common.
Sometimes the proper response is more in emotion than it is
in action. The most important response is that of faith – a willingness to
believe what God has said. The response may include thankfulness, sometimes expressed
as an offering during the worship service. Sometimes the appropriate response
is simply joy. Sometimes it is repentance, a change in behavior or a change in
attitude toward other people.
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Sometimes silence is the best response. Sometimes we are
simply dumbfounded at God’s greatness, or his mercy, and we just don’t have the
words to say anything intelligent. So we cover our mouths and sit in awe of
God. We are speechless at how utterly different God is from us, how holy, how righteous,
how perfect, how powerful, how completely beyond limitations of time and space
he is. And we are awe-struck that he has been so humble as to care about
persons such as ourselves. Overwhelming awe is one of many possible responses
to God, depending on how he reveals himself to us.
No matter what, we should expect God to affect both our
emotions and our minds. Our relationship with him involves all our heart, mind,
soul and strength. God wants all of us, not just part of us, as we worship him.
The real test of worship is not what happens at church, but
what happens at home, and on the job, and wherever we go. Is God important
enough to make a difference in the way we live, in the way we work, in the way
we get along with other people? When the Holy Spirit lives in us, when we are
the temple of the Holy Spirit, worship is a part of everyday life.
Worship rituals
Last, I will comment briefly on worship rituals. To some
people, ritual suggests meaningless actions. Some rituals are like that, but
not all rituals are bad. God has commanded us to have some rituals, some
repeated actions. We don’t want them to become meaningless, and to avoid that,
we need to keep reminding ourselves of the meaning.
Some churches have many rituals, a highly structured service,
a liturgy with carefully designed prayers, responsive readings, reciting
creeds, and other repeated actions. In some respects, this is like what the
temple worship was. Other churches are much simpler, more like the synagogue,
with a focus on Scripture. Neither approach is commanded or forbidden.
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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are
taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973,
1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used
by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
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This article was written by Michael Morrison. Copyright
Grace Communion International. All rights reserved.
We in Grace Communion International have traditionally been
on the simpler side of things. We have a small number of ceremonies, such as
weddings, funerals, ordination, blessing of children, anointing the sick, and a
few others. But two ceremonies are much more important than the others –
baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Both of these practices picture in a symbolic
way, in physical actions, some spiritual truths about the gospel. They proclaim
God’s worth not only in what we say, but also by what we do. In different ways,
they picture the death and life of Jesus Christ. (See articles on baptism and
the Lord's Supper.)
I conclude with a simple three-fold test regarding worship
practices. This test encapsulates some of the major themes of worship. To
analyze a worship practice, we need to ask these questions:
Does it glorify God? That is one major purpose of worship.
Does it build up the body of Christ? That is another major
purpose.
And third, does it help us be what God wants us to be in the
world? Does it have practical results in our lives?
Perfect worship
There is a serious problem with the way the worship: we
don’t do it right. We try to be living sacrifices for God, but we don’t always
do that right. As some have said, the problem with living sacrifices is that
they keep crawling off of the altar. Like the people of ancient Israel, our
lives are mixed with sin. We do not have the faith that we’d like to have. We
do not have as much love as we’d like to have. We do not pray as well as we
wish we could. Our songs do not express our emotions as well as we’d like. We would
like to present our king with sparkling jewels, but we have only plastic
trinkets to give.
How do we face our failure in the area of worship?
We respond in the same way that we respond for other areas
of failure: we look to Jesus. He has offered the perfect sacrifice for all of
us; he has given his life to God as an act of worship for all humanity. He is
our substitute — this is what theologians mean by a vicarious sacrifice. What
he did counts for us. He had no sins of his own, and yet he gave himself as a
sacrifice for sin — our sins.
Many Christians realize that Jesus was our substitute when
it comes to sacrifice. “Christ died for us” is part of the New Testament
message. He has given the worship that we could not.
But Jesus is our substitute in other ways, too, because our
lives are hidden in him (Colossians 3:2), and he lives in us (Galatians 2:20).
The prayers that we offer are not perfect, but we pray in Christ’s name, and he
intercedes for us. He takes our defective prayers, removes the parts where we
ask amiss, adds the details that we have neglected, and offers those prayers to
God as perfect worship.
Because Jesus Christ is our representative, he offers
perfect worship on our behalf, and our role is to join him in what he is
already doing for us. Whether it is sacrifice, prayer, study or response, he
has already been there and done that for us. The worship he gives to God is a
vicarious worship, done for us, on our behalf.
We do our best to “get it right,” but part of being “right”
is admitting that we aren’t always right (1 John 1:8). So the last word on
worship is that we must look to Jesus as the one who is doing it right for us,
and he invites us to join in what he is doing.
Lesson 1
The Purpose Of Our Worship Of God
The purpose of our worship is to glorify, honor, praise,
exalt, and please God. Our worship must show our adoration and loyalty to God
for His grace in providing us with the way to escape the bondage of sin, so we
can have the salvation He so much wants to give us. The nature of the worship
God demands is the prostration of our souls before Him in humble and contrite
submission. James 4:6, 10 tells us, "God resists the proud, but gives
grace to the humble. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will
lift you up". Our worship to God is a very humble and reverent action.
Jesus says in John 4:23-24, "But the hour is coming,
and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in
truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they
that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." It doesn't say
we can worship God anyway we want, but we "must worship Him in spirit and
in truth". The word "must" makes it absolute. There is no other
way we can worship God and be acceptable to Him. The word "must",
according to Webster, expresses "an obligation, a requirement, a
necessity, a certainty, and something that must be done". When
"must" is used it means that it is not optional. Here the word "must" is expressing
that in spirit and in truth is the only way to acceptably worship God. God
seeks true worshippers, and He identifies them as those who "worship Him
in spirit and in truth". Worshipping God in spirit and in truth is a
serious matter which must not be taken lightly. If we have any regard for our
own souls, we will want to make sure we are worshipping God in spirit and in
truth.
Since God is the object of our worship, He and He alone has
the right to determine how we are to worship Him. We read in Jeremiah 10:23,
"O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man
who walks to direct his own steps."
We are not granted the option of directing our own ways in religion. God
is the One who we look to for guidance and direction in our lives.
Our very best in worship is due God and is prescribed by Him
in the Bible. The worship God has prescribed is the only way we can be pleasing
to Him in this life and finally attain everlasting life with Him in eternity.
The Christian's worship is of the greatest importance.
Worship is a time when we pay deep, sincere, awesome
respect, love, and fear to the one who created us. Acts 17:24-25 says,
"God who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven
and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, as though He needed
anything, since He gives life, breath, and all things."
God is the one who holds our eternal destiny in His hands.
Philippians 2:12 tells us to, "work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling." Our salvation is a very serious matter and will not happen by
accident. We must work it out "with fear and trembling". Our
salvation depends on whether our worship is pleasing to God or not. On the Day
of Judgment it will be too late to make any corrections.
Worship should cause us to reflect on the majesty and
graciousness of God and Christ, contrasted to our own unworthiness. God does
not have to have our worship, but we must worship Him to please Him. Our
singing, praying, studying His word, giving, and communion are designed by God to
bring us closer to Him and to cause us to think more like He thinks, thus
becoming more like Him. James 4:8 tells us to, "Draw near to God and He
will draw near to you."
Our worship not only honors and magnifies God, but it is
also for our own edification and strength. Worship helps us develop a God-like
and Christ-like character. We become like unto those we admire and worship.
When we worship God we tend to value what God values and gradually take on the
characteristics and qualities of God, but never to His level. As Philippians
2:5 says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ." How do
we take on the mind of Christ? In Romans 12:2 we read, "And do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
We renew our mind as we study and meditate on God's word and worship Him.
When we worship God we develop such traits as forgiveness,
tenderness, justice, righteousness, purity, kindness, and love. All of this is
preparing us for eternal life in heaven with God and Christ. As we are told in
Colossians 3:2 to, "Set your mind on things above, and not on things on
the earth."
