Worship

Worship is a huge topic and I shall be sharing my thoughts on what I believe it is. I want to cover 4 aspects.

The 4 aspects are:

• What is worship?
• Why do we worship?
• How do we worship?
• When do we worship?

What is worship?

As with most teachers and preachers they will find the original Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic or Anglo-Saxon, so I thought I would too… So the word worship comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “weorthscipe” which literally means to ascribe worth to something.

First let’s look at the dictionary definition of worship:

• Reverent honour and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.
• Formal or ceremonious rendering of such honour and homage: They attended worship this morning.
• Adoring reverence or regard: excessive worship of business success.
• The object of adoring reverence or regard
• Some definitions say “to kiss”

Worship is more than singing songs on a Sunday, its more than just the way we live day to day, it’s about everything we do, together as a corporate gathering, what we do as a smaller family group, how we live our own personal lives and the deepest secret parts of our hearts.

Why do we worship?

Everybody worships something, whether it be a rock stars (or pop stars), celebrities, adrenaline fuelled experiences, money, the things that we value, admire, love and enjoy the most are by definition objects of our affection.

Even John in Revelations fell down to worship at the feet of the angel

Revelation 22:9 (NIV)

But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brother’s the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. worship God!”

Psalm 100 (NIV) says:

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. worship the Lord with gladness; Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his;
 We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
 and his courts with praise;
 Give thanks to him and praise his name. 
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”

We were created to worship, but when we worship anything other than God, we somehow missing the point, missing out on our purpose.

I’ve been guilty of this, after a Sunday morning coming away from the meeting and saying, “You know, I really didn’t get much out of the worship this morning” or “Those songs really didn’t do much for me today”, we’ve probably all felt like that at some point (or it’s just me). But worship is not a mechanism to cheer us up, to make us happier, or more fulfilled, worship is not about you or me. It’s not even about setting up the people nicely to hear the message or teaching afterwards. But you can get all of that as a as a by-product.

Joyce Meyer in her book “The power of simple prayer” says:

“Praise brings a release of our burdens; it take the focus off ourselves and our problems and puts it on God – and that always makes us feel better”

So why do we worship?

True worship is centred on Jesus, it’s about you / me personally, individually engaging with God.
A phrase I like is this “Worship has an audience of one.. God”.

How do we worship?

Let’s take a brief look at praise and worship as often we put the two together in the same context or sentence.

Praise consists of music, songs, words, playing instruments:

Psalm 9:11

Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done.

Psalm 33:2

Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.

Is 42:12

Let them give glory to the LORD and proclaim his praise in the islands.

Heb 13:15

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise— the fruit of lips that confess his name.

2 Chr 20:22

As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.

Praise is powerful…

Joyce Meyer writes again:

“Praise is a form of spiritual warfare. Praising God defeats the forces of evil (remember the story of Jehoshaphat). Singing or shouting praises can break the power of fear off us and help us get rid of doubt and unbelief”

Worship, I believe, goes beyond praise, and that’s not to say that we can’t and don’t worship with songs, music, words or playing instruments as I believe you can and should. Worship is showing reverence to God, an act of bowing down and serving the Lord.

1 Chr 16:29

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to his name. Bring an offering and come before him; worship the LORD in the splendour of his holiness.

Ps 95:6

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;

Ps 96:9

Worship the LORD in the splendour of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.

Worship is an act of giving to God, a sacrifice and that includes time and money.

Here’s a great acrostic of CHRIST in relation to worship:

C – Christ Centred

Our worship must be centred on Christ.

Romans 12:1 The Message:

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.

H – Holy Spirit Led

Our worship must be led by the Holy Spirit

Philippians 3:3 NIV

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus

R – Response to the Father

John 3:16 says:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life

I – Intimacy

The word most commonly used in the New Testament to describe worship is ‘proskuneo’, the word literally means ‘to come towards and to kiss in reverence’, a term of intimacy and tenderness, but at the same time of great respect

S – Service

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

T – Transformation

Worship leads to transformation

Matthew 28: 19 – 20

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So how do we worship?
With everything you are and with everything you have.

When do we worship?

Mark 12 v 28 – 30 says:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
When you love something with all your heart, soul, mind and strength then you going to want to sing about it, shout about it, tell other people about it. It is on your mind, you live for it. Most importantly you want to spend time with the one you love and if you spend too much time apart then you are in danger of losing the importance of that love, the love of God.

As mission shaped communities, as well as spending time out “doing mission”, we must be careful not to neglect the inward and upward aspects of our life as followers of Jesus and I’m including praise, worship prayer and thanksgiving in that.

John Stott wrote:

“The highest of missionary motives is neither obedience to the Great Commission (important as that is), nor love for sinners who are alienated and perishing, but rather zeal – burning and passionate zeal – for the glory of Jesus Christ”.

John Piper states in his book, Let the Nations be Glad!, that:

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

So when do we worship?
In the quite times on your own, this can be the easiest and the hardest times, with friends and with family. In corporate gatherings and church services. Quite simply all the time.

Let me end by saying again that “Worship” is a massive topic, it covers every moment of our lives, It covers what we do and say, what we sing and play.

We’ve talked about 4 aspects of worship:

• What is worship?
• Why do we worship?
• How do we worship?
• When do we worship?

Worship is a personal one on one activity with God, whether we do it as part of a Sunday service, with our time or our money; whilst cooking the dinner, or while we are at work, school or college. The main point is that we worship God.

I hope I’ve covered some of the basics and I pray that I may have helped you to understand at least my heart for worship. Just to finish I’d like to play another video clip. You may think it’s cheesy and makes use of a little poetic license, but it’s God’s creation, in harmony in worship.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zWKm-LZWm4″]