What is worship?

Personal worship

There are ultimately three types of worship in our lives: personal or private worship, corporate worship, and lifestyle worship. Today, let’s take a look at personal worship. Personal or private worship is the worship we experience in our personal or private time with the Lord in our living relationship with Him. This is one of the most vital and crucial areas of our faith. It is taking the time to personally know Christ, to spend time with Him, to love Him affectionately, to worship and adore Him.

To do this we must get away from the busyness and distractions of life. We need an appointed time and place. Matt. 28:16 tells us, “The 11 disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.”  The next verse says, “when they saw Jesus, they worshiped him!” 

In personal worship we can know and experience Christ as we feast on the living Word of God, listen to the voice of the Lord, and spend time in deep and meaningful prayer. We can lift our hearts and sing to Jesus personally and privately in a worship service of one. Remember, worship exists within a deeply personal relationship between you and God. No one can love Jesus for you. In personal worship we express our love and affection for Christ individually.

Corporate worship: Part 2

One of the biggest misconceptions in the church today involves our perceptions and presumptions about corporate worship. Our culture is very consumer driven and it is far too easy for corporate worship to be seen in the same way. For example, just about every church I know uses the terms “worship service” to describe what takes place on Sunday mornings at the church. Through consumeristic lenses one might think that the “service” that should be rendered belongs to those who attend. In corporate worship however, “service” should always and only be rendered and directed unto the Lord. 

Psalms 96:7-8 says, “Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts.” Corporate worship is never about “me” as our consumer-driven world is. We do not come to worship to receive anything, only to give. Our time together in corporate worship centers around Christ in giving all that we have as an offering to Him. The terms “minister” or “bless” are often misconstrued as well. The worship service has nothing to do with ministering to or blessing people in its purpose. Biblically speaking, we are all called to minister to, and bless the Lord. 

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will! Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!” Psalm 103:1-2, 20-22 ESV

Worshipers of the Bible would never come to worship empty handed and neither should we today. Our motives and mindset in corporate worship should always be about the offering we bring to Jesus. We minister to and bless Him because He is worthy of it all!

What is praise?

Charles Spurgeon said, “whenever we have to praise God, what do we do? We simply say what He is! You are this and You are that. There is no other praise. We cannot fetch anything from anywhere else and bring it to God; the praises of God are simply the facts about himself! If you want to praise the Lord Jesus Christ, tell the people about him.” If the simplest definition for worship is the act of “loving God”, then the simplest explanation of praise would be the act of “bragging on God”. All throughout God’s Word we find praise being lifted up. Praise is mentioned 200 times in the Bible, 500+ if you include words such as worship, sing, shout, or bow down. 

In all of eternity God will be praised. “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” Jude 1:24-25

All of creation is constantly declaring praise to the Lord. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Psalms 19:1-4 NIV

God’s praise is inevitable. Jesus said in Luke 19:40 “He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

So, I pray that everything within you will praise the Lord, for He is worthy of our highest praise! Declare who He is today, to Him, to yourself, to others.  Praise Him! 

Expressions of praise: Shouting

There are 8 biblical expressions of praise: shouting, speaking, singing, playing an instrument, clapping, dancing, kneeling, and lifting hands to the Lord. I don’t know about you but from this list, shouting often feels like a challenge to me. I was raised in a Godly home where I was taught to be respectful, courteous of others, and to never raise my voice. Yet, the Bible calls us at times to give praise to the Lord in the form of shouting. 

Psalm 47:1 “shout unto God with the voice of triumph.” “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth!” Psalm 66:1 “Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob!” Psalm  81:1 “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.” Psalms 95:1 There are countless passages that refer to expressions of praise that included shouting. “When the ark of the Lord’s covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook.” 1 Samuel 4:5

Shouting may seem off your radar as an expression of praise you are comfortable with. However, let me pose a question. Do you have a favorite sports team you like to watch? If so have you ever cheered or shouted when your team scores? Do you have a favorite activity you enjoy? Have you ever shouted at the peak of its excitement? How about in witnessing a friend or family member or someone you admire accomplish a great feat? I bet you may have at least raised your voice, right? 

Praise in the form of shouting can become a personal expression of worship if you allow your praise to be uninhibited. When we experience, or are reminded of, the Lord’s greatness, goodness, or salvation, among countless other things, we should not remain silent but let our praise resound. So, don’t be afraid, let out a shout of praise!

“Shout to the Lord, all the earth; break out in praise and sing for joy! Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the earth and all living things join in. Psalms 98:4, 7

Expressions of Praise: Lifting hands

One of the greatest joys as a father is to look down at your sweet little angel as their arms are lifted high. It’s as if they’re signaling “up, up, daddy, I want you to hold me, I want to be close to you.” In much the same way, lifting our hands is an expression of our worship and praise saying, “I love you Father, I am yours, I want to be close to You, near You, with You.” 

It can be easy to dismiss the idea of raising our hands in worship. Some people view it as being too exuberant or flamboyant. Others don’t want to draw attention to themselves. But raising our hands is a biblical discipline in our worship that keeps us focused and concentrated on Christ. Many of us struggle with minds that are prone to wander even as we desire to be worshiping. Lifting our hands helps curb this tendency. Sometimes the psychical nature of our worship can allow the spiritual part to be more open and vulnerable before the Lord. When we worship with our bodies such as lifting our hands, we are worshiping with the very fiber of our “beings”.  If we truly want to worship in surrender before the Lord, we will take down our defenses and give him access to the inner recesses of our hearts. 

So, let us not be ashamed or afraid of lifting our hands in worship. Let’s give of ourselves completely, as we love our Lord.

“In every place of worship, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God,” 1 Timothy 2:8a

“Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.” Psalms 134:2

“So, I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.” Psalm 63:4

Honest worship

“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” 1 Samuel 16:7 NLT

In all of our worship the Lord looks intensively at our heart. God is not impressed by the elegance or eloquence of our worship. What our worship “looks like” aesthetically is not at all important in the way the Lord actually sees or perceives our worship. “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, he will not despise.” Psalm 51:16-17 

So, what is the Lord looking for when He looks deeply upon our hearts as we worship? Honest worship is about “being real” and authentic in the way we approach the Lord. The reality is that God already knows what weighs heavily on our hearts, He knows what consumes the countless thoughts of our minds. Honest worship has more to do with our “openness” towards God. Our loving Holy Father doesn’t want to be left on the outside looking in when it comes to our relationship with Him. And this most certainly includes our worship. The reason God does not “despise the sacrifices of a broken and contrite heart” is not because our Lord finds pleasure in our pain or suffering. It simply is that oftentimes these are the only moments in our lives where we are truly honest before the Lord in our worship. 

Indeed, His heart breaks right alongside yours, He feels your pain and deeply wants to be close to you in your brokenness. The point is that worship, honest worship, is loving our Savior in the most real moments of our lives. Not as we might imagine or wish things to be, not with some lofty view of ourselves or our lives, other than the reality that we live in, and not in some idealistic scenario which keeps God at arm’s length in the midst of our lives. Honest worship includes Jesus at the very center of our lives with all that entails. Is your worship, honest worship?

Idol worship

Worship is in our DNA. We were created with an innate impulse to worship. Some may disagree with these statements but one way or another we are all engaged in the worship of something or someone. Author James McDonald says, “The highest and most powerful human experience is to express our love to the most worthy object of our affection. The greatest sin, then is directing that adoration elsewhere, not only because it insults God, but also because it insulates our hearts from the delight we were created to revel in.” 

The apostle Paul described it this way, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” Romans 1:21-25 ESV

Idol worship is placing anything in our lives in the Lord’s rightful place on the throne of our hearts. And we cannot worship the Lord and idols alongside one another. So, what’s the solution? The idols must be removed and torn down. In Judges 6:25 the Lord instructed Gideon to “tear down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.” In verse 26 He instructed Gideon to build an altar “to the Lord your God” in its place. As long as idols remain in our lives the temptation to worship them will always remain. The more we slay and tear down our idols in our lives, the more we place Jesus in His rightful place as the object of our heart’s affection, as the center of our worship.

Pastor Joe

Worship in the place of His Presence

In worship, we are engaging with the very Presence of the Lord Almighty. There is nothing more incredible, transformative, and life changing than to be in His midst. I can think back on so many times in my life where I have so sensed, felt, and experienced God’s Holy Presence in such a powerful way that I was completely overwhelmed and overtaken by His glory! In the midst of God’s glorious Presence, we become completely undone. In Isaiah 6:1-5 it says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” “At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.””

Have you ever experienced the power and the glory of the Lord’s Presence? In this place of His incredible Presence we begin to see ourselves, and more importantly, our Glorious and Almighty God with more clarity. We see and experience His holiness, His righteousness, and we immediately become aware of our sin, shame, and brokenness before the Lord. Our perspectives, our pride, and perceptions are completely shattered as we now see God as He should be-as Lord! And we see ourselves in true humility-in desperate need of a Savior! Author James McDonald says, “worship is a magnification of God and a minimization of self.” John the Baptist put it this way, in John 3:30 he said of Christ Jesus, “He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.”  

Do you desire to experience God’s glory and power in your worship? If you do, don’t view your time of worship as simply a daily task or exercise of your faith. Rather, anticipate your time of worship as an opportunity to meet with God in His glorious Presence. 

Pastor Joe

Worship in Spirit and Truth

Did you know that our Heavenly Father is on the lookout for true worshipers? What are true worshipers, you might ask. Well, John 4:23 says, “But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way.” So, what sets us apart as true worshipers? It’s that we worship in spirit and truth. A.W. Tozer said, “You cannot worship the Lord in spirit alone, for the spirit without truth is meaningless, and you cannot worship in truth alone, for that would be theology without fire. It must be the truth of God and the spirit of God. Today let’s focus on the aspect of worship in spirit.

Remember worship, simply put, is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” Duet. 6:5 If we worship with only our minds we are merely engaging in a “mental exercise” or going through ritualistic motions- this type of worship is hollow and empty. One of the greatest challenges when it comes to worshiping in spirit is our willingness and openness to worship with more than just our minds. 

Oftentimes a taboo word when it comes to worship is the word emotion. Biblically speaking however, worship in spirit includes our whole being as we are engaged in worship, and this includes our emotions. Author James McDonald says, “emotions like gratitude and lament, joy and contrition must well up inside the one who rightly conceives that God is not just present in our praise but leaning in to love us back and manifest His glory.” Worship in spirit is not about being emotional, it is about being fully present, and completely honest and sincere in our worship before the Lord. Another great A.W. Tozer quote goes like this, “you can be as straight as a gun barrel theologically, and as empty as one spiritually.” It is far too easy to “check out” or go through the motions in our worship if our heart isn’t in it, if we aren’t worshiping with everything that is inside of us-heart, mind, soul, and strength. God is Spirit, so let us then worship Him from our inner most being-let us worship in spirit.