"Immanuel - God with us."

Christian Worship

"Therefore, 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."  Romans 12:1

"Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words" defines worship as to "kiss toward". And then it adds this comment: Worship "may be regarded as the direct acknowledgment to God of His nature, attributes, ways and claims, whether by outgoing of the heart in praise and thanksgiving or by deed done in such acknowledgment."

Henry Morris, Ph.D. (author of "The Genesis Record"), gives a simpler definition; worship means to "bow down".

It is difficult to pin down an exact definition of worship so it may be better to look at some of the acts of worship recorded in the Bible.

Often we call the Sunday assembly of the church the "worship service". This is alright as long as we realize that the Sunday assembly is a very small part of our worship.

Someone has said that Acts 2:42 is a model for worship assemblies. "They (the first disciples) devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." The "apostles' teaching" would be the sermon. The "fellowship" (literally sharing and partnership) is the collection of offerings. The "breaking of bread" is assumed to be the Lord's Supper. And the "prayer" would be the public prayers in the assembly. I think singing may be added to this outline of a worship assembly.

For a couple of reasons I am confident that the worship assemblies of churches today do not resemble the worship assemblies of the First Century church.

First, there was a miraculous element in the First Century that I do not believe is available to us today. In I Corinthians 12 Paul speaks of the right use of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit in the assemblies of the church. I do not believe that what some today call the "miraculous gifts of the Spirit" (like wisdom, knowledge, prophecies and tongues) are from God.

Secondly, there are so many different styles of worship taking place in church assemblies now. These styles are labeled "traditional" and "contemporary" and "seeker". Some churches stick close to a liturgical style of worship with the readings and creeds and chants and responsive readings and prayers. Some assemblies are quite unplanned and what happens is a matter of the moment. And others, even though planned, sometimes resemble a concert with music that has a heavy beat, a drama, and a preacher dressed very casually.

Personally, I do not have any preference of worship style. I like all of the different styles. I remember seeing a photograph of a worship service in Zimbabwe and the American missionary had joined in with the Africans in what looked to me like a "line dance". Quite a shock for a boy who believed only elders could pray at the communion table and only deacons could serve communion and dancing in any form was forbidden.
But worship is far more than what happens on Sundays.

If we accept the definition that worship means to bow down, then worship takes place every time we submit our wills to the will of God. And this kind of worship, hopefully, happens all the time in every place.

In Genesis 22 Abraham was commanded by God to take his son Isaac to Mt. Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering. When Abraham and Isaac came to Moriah Abraham told the two servants who were traveling with them to wait at the foot of the mountain while he and Isaac went up on the mountain. Abraham said, "We will worship and then we will come back to you." (Genesis 22:5b)

Aside from making this great statement of faith (Abraham said "we will come back" knowing that he was going to kill his son - see Hebrew 11:7-19), notice that Abraham used the word "worship" for what he was about to do to his son.

For Abraham worship was the act of submitting to the authority of God and obeying the God's command to sacrifice his son, Isaac. This is what Abraham meant when he told his servants, "We will worship (we will submit to and obey God) and then we will come back to you."
In I Samuel 15 God rejected the first king of Israel (Saul) for his disobedience. God had commanded King Saul to attack the Amalekites and completely destroy them. Saul was to kill all the people and animals. But after Saul won the battle he disobeyed God and kept some of the people alive and took the best of the animals for himself.

God sent the High Priest Samuel to confront the king. When they met King Saul bragged, "I have carried out the Lord's instructions." But Samuel asked, "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?"

King Saul knew he had been disobedient so he tried to cover his sin by saying that he had kept the best of the sheep and cattle for sacrifices to the Lord. But Samuel cut him off. Samuel told the king that the Lord gave him a specific command and he had disobeyed God. And again Saul tried to justify his disobedience.

Then Samuel said these words that we need to hear, too. "Does the Lord delight in burnt offering and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king." (I Samuel 15:22-23)

Imagine this. Samuel called Saul's disobedience "rebellion" and compared Saul's rebellion to his breaking God's commands prohibiting divination and idolatry. Divination is seeking other gods, and greed is idolatry (Colossians 3:5) which is submitting to that which promises to satisfy one's lusts.

Samuel said, "To obey is better than sacrifice." If I can paraphrase, "To obey the commandments of God and becoming the person God wants you to be is better than going through the acts of what is commonly called worship."

In addition to this, I believe that worship is very closely akin to spirituality.

Often modern evangelicals want to equate spirituality with the emotional experiences that take place in the context of a worship service or in some other religious gathering, or in the environment of an exercise like prayer, or walking by a lake, or an illness that is handled confidently. Legalists, liberals and evangelicals tend to speak of the "leading of the Holy Spirit" to justify their decisions or to explain the events of living.

Personally, I don't believe that emotion has much to do with spirituality or worship. People get emotional about a lot of things: their pets, at sporting events and reunions, by listening to nostalgic music, and with their families.

And the "leading of the Holy Spirit" is used to justify practically any belief or behavior from open membership to homosexuality to moving to a new location to stopping by a someone's house who is in need.

Worship is not what we feel. Worship is not subjective. Worship is what we do. And spirituality is not a matter of feeling close to God. Spirituality is a matter of doing the will of God. A truly spiritual person is one who seeks the will of God and does it. One of my friends, who is a long way from being an emotional believer, says the more he submits to the will of God the more spiritual he becomes. I think he is right.

Christian worship is a very simple matter to define, but much more difficult to do. The next time you think about worship, remember Abraham worshiped God when he obeyed God and laid his only son on an altar to kill him. And remember Samuel's words to King Saul, "To obey is better than sacrifice."

Christian worship is accomplished when we gratefully acknowledge that our Lord has every right to command us and is accomplished when we submit to His authority and do as He commands in His word. Worship occurs when we deny ourselves and become the persons God wants us to be.