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Worship

During this month we're exploring worship. You may wonder what's so important about such an ambiguous subject. You may have some very reasonable questions: "What is worship? Is it good for my business? Does it guarantee corporate success? If I worship enough, will God rescue me from this drab job and make me a king like David (or a least a senior vice president)?

"If I am a good worshiper, will God bless me with a big house in a wealthy neighborhood? How about a BMW? If I worship well, will God make me popular? Will worship help me 'feel good' about myself? "Is it 'culturally relevant?' If worship can't be counted like cash, if it can't be seen like sailboats, and if it can't empower my position, who needs it?"

Erwin Lutzer, a well known author and the longtime pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, provides an answer that cuts through the fog and helps us see our way. In a book entitled Men of Integrity, he writes: If we haven't learned to be worshipers, it doesn't really matter how well we do anything else.

His statement is right on target. As I look through the Scriptures, what leaps off the pages in book after book, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, is the reality that God wants us to learn to be worshipers. If we don't worship Him in ways He accepts, it doesn't matter how well we do anything else.

But what is worship? Today, let's look at this word in history and in the Scriptures, and see what we can learn.

Our word worship came from an old Anglo-Saxon word that later became worthship. It means "to attribute worth" to an object. But we have a little problem here: When that object of worship is God, a simple word like worthship doesn't nearly encompass all that's involved!

In recognition of this challenge of understanding what worship is, many have attempted to communicate the meaning and feeling of worship. In Psalm 42:1-2, for example, the sons of Korah express one aspect of worship with this analogy: "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?"

Dwight Bradley, in Leaves From a Spiritual Notebook, expressed the manifold nature of worship this way:

For worship is a thirsty land crying out for rain,
...a candle in the act of being kindled,
...a drop in quest of the ocean,...
...a voice in the night calling for help,
...a soul standing in awe before the mystery of the universe,
... It is time flowing into eternity,
...a man climbing the altar stairs to God.

Here's another favorite description of mine, from the pen of William Temple:

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.

Even the Bible uses more than one word for "worship." In the Old Testament, two prominent Hebrew words are enlightening. One means "a bowing down." It describes the proper way for us to approach God; that is, we should approach Him in submissive lowliness and deep respect.

The second Hebrew word for worship means "service." It describes the highest role we can have in our worship of God; that is, the privilege of serving Him.

Note please that one word describes the appropriate attitude we should have in worship, and the other word describes the appropriate action we should perform in worship. In true worship, attitude and action interlock. They complement each other.

When we move into the New Testament and look around, we find the same thing: the Greek words for worship in the New Testament are complementary, dealing with our attitude and our action.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 4 and verses 21-24, Jesus had a lifestyle-changing conversation with an infamous Samaritan woman by a well of water. He concludes with these words: "the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." As He described the sort of worshiper God seeks, he used a word for worship that means "to kiss the hand" or "to bow down." This term refers to approaching God in an attitude of humble, reverent adoration.

In contrast, Philippians 3:3 uses a different Greek word. In English, it says "we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." This time, God uses a word for worship that means "to serve" or "to render homage." That is, our worship involves the action of humble service.

This is an interesting verb. It doesn't describe voluntary service; it describes service that has been purchased. When God directed Paul to use this term, God destroyed forever the misconception that when we serve God, we're "doing Him a favor."

The truth is, we owe Him our worshipful service. We were redeemed from a future in hell by the love of God the Father and the blood of Christ, His Son.

What have we learned today? We've learned that worship is the acknowledgment of God's worth. Worship is a complementary combination of attitude and action. Our attitude on the inside expresses itself in action on the outside.

Tomorrow, we'll discover some of the ways worship can change our lives.