What Is Worship?

What Is Worship?

Now that's a mouthful of a question. A question that evokes a myriad of definitions and responses. All across church history and biblical history this seems to be the age old question. If we dig in to the question though we will find that it is typically skewed. What people are really asking is, where do we worship, how do we worship, when do we worship, what do we wear to worship, does it have to include music, instruments, singing, preaching, charity, etc. At the inner most place in our heart we ALL know the essence of worship. Even before any person is regenerated and saved by grace we not only know what worship is but we do it, all the time, just not correctly. 

Remember that I said this was even a question in biblical history, even Jesus had to deal with this very question! Lets look at John 4. Jesus is on his way to Galilee from Judea and he has to go through Samaria to get there and as he rests at Jacob's well in Samaria a Samaritan women came to that well and Jesus engages her in conversation. See, the dispute at that time was "where" to worship.

John 4:19-24 NASB

¹⁹ The woman *said to Him, “^[d]Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus *said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. ²⁴ God is ^[e]spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Christ squashes all the external questions. God must be worshipped in Spirit and Truth! God is seeking for those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth! What does that mean? How does that work out in our present reality?

I was listening to a sermon this morning and the Pastor was talking about how years ago he was watching a Michael Jackson concert on television and as the camera panned out to see the crowd what he saw was crazy. I remember seeing similar video of Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. What we saw among the crowd was a mass of thousands of people completely mesmerized, completely fixated, wholly engaged by them. Some were so lost in the moment that they seemed to be in a trance, completely fixated on the artist. With artists of such magnitude we saw women crying, people fainting, screaming, no inhibitions, no distractions, nothing else outside of that moment and the truth that someone they exalted was in their presence mattered! You know what they were doing? Worshipping Michael, worshipping Elvis! It wasn't real worship because only God is worthy to be praised but in our natural sense of the word they were guilty of worshipping an idol!! They worshipped a man who knew them not, would never do anything for them, would never know their name, struggles, pains, questions, and story. Yet we have the opportunity to worship Christ the Lord but choose dead, rehearsed, scheduled, dry "worship."

From the Hebrew and Greek words that we translate in English to worship they revolve around position(demeanor) and action. From to prostrate, to bow, to reverence, servitude, sacrifice, and slavish surrender. 

Jesus says to authentically, fully, and genuinely worship God we MUST do it In Spirit and In Truth! Let's dive into that.

How do we worship(bow, reverence, serve, act, emote) God in Spirit? First, for one to truly worship God they MUST be indwelt with the Holy Spirit thus they are born-again children of Almighty God. But that's not all. The deeper, more broad understanding of the Greek word here that is used in this quotation presses into the deepest part of a man, his soul! It's often defined as the vital principal by which the body is animated. The rational spirit, the power by which the human feels, thinks, decides. The disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul. The efficient source of our power, affection, emotion, and desire! When we worship God it must express the supernatural realm in the disposition, actions, posture, words, and relationships of the physical reality we are bound to! Our senses engulfed by the beauty, majesty, holiness, graciousness, and love of God! In worship we will be focused, sensitive to the Holy Spirit and His unction, blinded by the Grace of God, and we will be so moved that it WILL express itself in our actions, our service, our posture, our emotions, our sacrifice, our reverence, our everything! 

Secondly, we are commanded by Christ that we MUST worship God in Truth. How do we worship God in truth? The Spirit ALWAYS points to Christ who is the Word in flesh, the TRUTH! The only way we can be moved to such passion, reverence, fear, humility, excitement, devotion, actions, service, sacrifice, and joy it that we know the truth of God's Word! Many today cannot worship because they know not the truth! They have all the passion, excitement, and emotion but no truth, that's not true worship! The other side to understanding this prescription of worship in truth is authenticity. Real, true, right, not taught, bought, or fake. Not emulation, not obligation, not performance, to merely emotion but a true reaction in your soul to what you know is true about God as revealed in scripture!

Many try to worship with truth alone. Liturgy, rituals, songs, service, and programs with no Spirit! Conversely, every Sunday by the droves millions make there way to a place where they attempt to worship with vain oblations, emotions, entertainment, motivational speeches, and awesome bands yet truth isn't anywhere to be found! This is why it imperative to pray in the spirit, drown yourself in the truth of the scriptures and marry the two in meditation! You'll never truly worship otherwise!

It's the essence behind the expression!

It's a beautiful marriage between the heart and the mind, the soul and the spirit, the physical and the supernatural, passion and expression, the communion between God and man.

An expression of the truth of God by the Spirit of God in the physical world.

The direct expression of our ultimate purpose for living, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Isaiah 6 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Isaiah’s Vision

6 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. ² Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one called out to another and said,

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
The ^[a]whole earth is full of His glory.”

⁴ And the ^[b]foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the ^[c]temple was filling with smoke. ⁵ Then I said,

“Woe is me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. ⁷ He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is ^[d]forgiven.”

Isaiah’s Commission

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Here, in the presence of God in the midst of Heavenly worship Isaiah is humbled, amazed, speechless, encouraged, fearful and reverent, repentant, forgiven, empowered, called, commissioned, and sent. Real worship motivates, encourages, humbles, creates reverence, changes our hearts, our demeanor, and our direction, demands us to listen, repent, and proclaim the majesty of God! 

We have the opportunity to truly worship!

Romans 12:1-2 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Dedicated Service

12 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, ^[a]acceptable to God, which is your ^[b]spiritual service of worship. ² And do not be conformed to this ^[c]world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may ^[d]prove what the will of God is, that which is good and ^[e]acceptable and perfect.

Here we have the command and the foundation to perform it. 

Hebrews 12:22-24 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

²² But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of ^[a]angels, ²³ to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

Every time we truly worship God in Spirit and in truth we join the corridors of Heaven in a majestic symphony of praise, honor, glory, reverence, majesty, and exaltation of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit! It's transcendent!

It will move us, excite us, humble us, cause us to fear in reverence, repent in humility, and sing praise in joy through salvation! Emotion and truth married in expression and action!

I'll leave you with William Temple's definition of worship....

"Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His Beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin"