Originally to worship meant simply to “attribute worth”; worship could be directed to God or to a person to whom honor and respect should be given. In classical Christian writings it referred primarily to our chief goal in life, that is, rendering grateful homage and dedicating our lives to God rather than to any other person or object. This included a person’s private religious devotions. The word has also been one of the main terms used for public religious services: many church notice boards list the hours for “divine worship.” In charismatic circles the word has mainly come to signify the time of extended praise in church, generally led by a “worship team.” In popular speech and song the word is frequently used of any extraordinary expression of devotion, for example, a person or group may “worship” a sports team or rock star, money or power. In some places the word is even used as a form of address, as to a judge in a law court or to an officeholder in a secret society. From a biblical point of view there are legitimate and illegitimate, acceptable and unacceptable, objects of worship (Genesis 4:3-7; Isaiah 1; Romans 14:17-18; Hebrews 12:28-29; Hebrews 13:16). Discernment is necessary to distinguish true from false objects of worship.
People’s feelings about what takes place in church services vary greatly. Some regard such corporate worship as primarily a duty; others as a delight. For some it is chiefly a matter of feeling inspired by or intimately connected to God, for others of being instructed or motivated to action. An increasing number of people today find traditional church services boring and irrelevant. This is particularly true of the younger baby-buster generation but also of many seekers, inquiring about or returning to church. Some find new styles of charismatic or contemporary worship appealing and uplifting. Disputes about appropriate and inappropriate styles of worship have divided many congregations, generally along age lines or according to different views of the Holy Spirit. Surveys of congregations across a wide denominational spectrum, such as those conducted by the Search Institute in Minneapolis some years ago, found that corporate worship is generally regarded as an oasis or refuge from workday demands, rather than as a base camp for equipping members to integrate faith and everyday life. This is why even many committed believers find churchgoing disappointing and un-empowering. Perhaps part of the problem is that our definition of worship is too narrow.
It is important that we keep the main thing, the main thing, and the main thing of the church is simply this, to glorify, or to worship God. Worship is important to God, so much so that out of the 10 commandments, the very first one deals with the subject of worship. Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. In Exodus chapter 34, the commandments are re-instated and God says in verse 14: Exodus 34:14 - “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”. The insinuation here is that while we do not worship other gods, there is One God Who is to be worshipped. When you read the Old Testament, you can not help but see the importance of worship in the lives of the people of God. Abraham worshipped (Gen. 22:5), Jacob worshipped (Heb. 11:21), Moses worshipped (Exodus 34:8), Joshua worshipped (Joshua 5:14), and of course David the king worshipped (2 Samuel 12:20). Worship was an integral part of the lives of God’s people through out the Old Testament. Worship was so important that God Himself designed and established the very first worship center, set up exclusively for worship in the Garden of Eden.
We find in the New Testament that worship is still important. Jesus told the woman at the well that God is seeking for worshippers. John 4:23 “But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him”. God is looking for and demanding true, sincere worship. The disciples worshipped the Lord (Matthew 28:9), the New Testament church worshipped (Philippians 3:3) and at the end, when God wraps up this world in the completion of His redemption plan, worship will still be important. Revelation 4:10 – “The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him… “
Our highest priority as Christians is to give glory to God, to exalt Him by giving Him worship. The very first proclamation that we make in our mission statement is that God has called us to worship and exalt Him.
We know that we are called upon to worship, we know that the reason that we gather together here today is to worship the Lord and I believe that when God’s people gather in worship that God does great things for them. Here’s what I want you to understand, our worship begins long before we enter into this sanctuary. Cooperate worship is important, but it hinges upon our individual worship. The devil knows that if he can defeat us in individual worship, that it will hinder our cooperate worship. In Psalms 24, we find that David outlines for us some very important aspects of what our approach to worship should be. It is believed by most scholars, that this psalm of David was written not long after David had captured the city of Jerusalem. David’s desire was to build a religious and political center for his kingdom and Jerusalem was to be it. David wanted to establish a permanent place of worship for God. The ark of the covenant had been placed in the house of Obededom the Gittite and God was blessing his house (2 Sam. 6:10-17). However David desired to bring the ark to Jerusalem and set it up upon the Mountain of Zion and so he does. The ark is placed upon the “holy hill”. After the ark is set in it’s place, the question is raised, “who can ascend to the hill of the Lord?” to worship. In other words, what are the conditions to approach the Lord of Hosts in worship? Here David shares the conditions for the approach of worship.
I. WORSHIP STARTS WITH A RIGHT RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
Note what David asks in verse 3, “who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?” The Hebrew language means to go up as to meet or visit with. And what David is saying is this; “Who can meet with God?” Who can come before Him in worship? Understand that in the OT just any body could not go before God’s presence because God’s attribute of being holy. So what happened is that God selected special men, like; Moses and later priest like Melchizadek. The holiness of God was great that the people would not even write the name God. Instead, they would write and/or say Yahew which is translated Jehovah.
However, David answers this question by saying “he that has clean hands and a pure heart”.
Now most of you know that hands are often used in scripture to represent what we do. What this means is that worship is our duty.
At the heart of the idea of worship is our relationship with God. All creation declares the glory of God unintentionally just by being itself (Psalm 19:1). But human beings uniquely can choose to bless God; indeed, we are obligated to do so. The fundamental way the Bible describes our relationship with God is the covenant, that binding personal relationship by which two parties (in this case God and people) belong together forever. The covenant starts with the promise that God has selected, adopted and saved the people (Exodus 19:4-6) making them a “treasured possession.” God promises presence, community and a place to belong. The covenant itself is unconditional, founded as it is on the promise, but the blessings of the covenant (the land, the continuance of the people and the ultimate blessing of the Gentiles) are conditional upon obedience to its obligations. These obligations involve (1) a lifestyle of behavior appropriate for God’s covenant people (embodied in the Ten Commandments) and (2) a lifestyle of blessing God (embodied in the temple worship and festivals). In other words, people in right relation to God live faithfully and bless God continuously.
David is saying that what we do is important. One of the problems of the Old Testament was that people would often do cruel things to one another, such as robbing from one another, or and then go to the house of the Lord and offer their worship, acting as if nothing was wrong. God was not pleased with such worship.
Malachi 3:5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
Remember that the Hebrew word for ascend meant to go up to meet. To go to God’s holy hill to meet with Him in worship. However, in Mal. 3:5, God is going to meet with the worshippers who abuse their brothers, not in worship, but in judgment. God was not happy with what the worshippers were doing. In essence, they were not in a right relationship with Him.
It is important to understand that what we do, our conduct, or conversation as it is often found in the NT, will affect our worship. If we come into this house and say one thing, but yet when we leave and go back to our jobs and families and do another, God will not accept our worship. Our hands must be clean. If they are not, then we are not in a right relationship with the Lord, and if we are not in a right relationship with God, then we can never be intimate in our worship with the Lord.
Notice also that David said, “he that has a pure heart”. Not only is what we do important, but also the motive behind it is important. The heart must be pure.
Here’s why this is important. Worship certainly involves activity. We lift our hands, we sing, we pray, we give loud exclamations of praise and all of these things are certainly “manifestations” of worship. However, worship, while involving actions, is first and foremost a function of the heart. Folks, we can sing until we are blue in the face, we can shout until the rafters shake, but if it is not from the heart, it is not worship. You can sing, and not truly worship, you can clap your hands, or lift them up, and not truly worship, you can pray, or speak in tongues, and not truly worship. Worship must come from a pure heart.
Remember that worship begins before we ever get here. Listen to me just a moment, I love music and I thank God for music. Music and song are great aids to help us in our worship. But I have found that we are far too guilty sometimes of worshipping the music, instead of worship the Creator. Worship doesn’t begin in the music, it begins in the heart and if the heart is not right (pure) then it is impossible to worship. I would be the first one to say that I wish we had an orchestra, and a full choir, but listen to me just a moment, if our hearts are pure, and filled with the love of God, we don’t have to have these “extras” to truly worship God.
In the last book of the Bible we are given an empowering vision of worship in the new Jerusalem. All earthly worship should be inspired by the worship that is already going on in heaven and that we will experience more fully when Christ comes again. In this sense our present worship is like “playing heaven,” as when little children invite each other to “play house,” looking forward to the day when they are grown up and have their own home. So in our worship now we are anticipating the joy of the final redemption of matter and time in one continuous, everyday life expression of joy and pleasure in God.
Far from being dull and stereotyped (playing the same old songs on our harps sitting on gold streets) worship in heaven is exquisitely beautiful, continuously spontaneous and totally enjoyable. The picture given to us in Rev. 21-22 has several characteristics that can inspire our worship now.
The worship is responsive. It is caused by God and God’s actions rather than “worked up” by human effort. God awakens a desire for worship (Rev. 3:20; Rev. 5:2) in the same way he awakened a desire in Adam for a wife.
The worship is reverent. God-pleasing and for God’s benefit, it is inspired by the mercy of God and directed to the pleasure of God. The alternatives promoted today—relational, charismatic or contemplative worship—focus on what we get out of corporate worship. But the royal priesthood (Rev. 1:6; Rev. 5:10) is focused on blessing God.
The worship is inclusive. Revelation gives us a picture of all nations, tribes and peoples together worshiping God. The global village has become the global garden city. The synergism of this is far more than the sum of individual privatized worship.
The worship is intelligent. The mind is engaged fully in heaven. Worship is not a “touchy-feely” affair but reflects (as does John himself) on the great themes of God as Creator and Redeemer (Rev. 4-5). Worship is evoked by the qualities and actions of God: power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, blessing and sovereignty (Rev. 4:11; Rev. 5:11, 13; Rev. 7:12; Rev. 19:1).
The worship is theological. Revelation is a Christ-centered commentary on the whole Old Testament explaining how Christ is the goal toward which the whole drama has been moving. This great theological theme provides the framework for the dominant mood of the book: worship. The original covenant reaches its consummation in the marriage supper of the Lamb, when we commune with Christ forever.
The worship is artistic Worship in heaven appeals to our senses in a spiritual way. There are sounds (trumpets, shouting in a loud voice, silence), motions (falling down prostrate, casting our crowns before the throne), light (rainbows and exquisite emerald), rhythm (antiphonal, sequential and total groupings of praise; Rev. 5:9, 12-13; Rev. 19) and patterns (the encircling throne; Rev. 5:11). Heavenly worship appeals to the sanctified imagination.
The worship is holistic. This worship does not only comprise times of direct focus upon God but the whole of life in the garden city of God, so full of divine creativity, beauty and wonder. Into this all the delightful things people have made from every nation will be brought and enjoyed.
The worship is prophetic. A balance of awe and intimacy, adoration and access, with respect to God is our destiny and should shape our worship in the here and now. In the same way our present earthly worship prepares us for life in the heavenly city. Perhaps in some way beyond our imaginations, but hinted in Hebrews 12:22-24, our present worship contributes to the ongoing worship in heaven.
What does worship accomplish? The question seems inappropriate because worship is not utilitarian: it does not accomplish anything. We do not make more money by it or get instant healing. Yet, worship “works” precisely because it lifts us above the compulsion to make everything useful and restores what we earlier called our true human posture: continuous reverence and thanksgiving.
By worshiping we are kept in touch with the really real, not the fake imitations that surround us and cry out for our ultimate loyalty. By worshiping we are challenged to live by kingdom priorities. Our society inundates us with messages to buy, consume and experience.
II. WORSHIP MUST INCLUDE A RESPECTFUL REVERENCE.
I don’t know if it bothers you, but it bothers me at the lack of respect shown for God. I cringe when I hear people talk about the “man upstairs” for God is more than a man.
I believe it is important that we remember that we are worshipping a Holy God. Notice what David calls the place before the presence of the Lord in verse 3. The question is asked, “Who shall stand in His holy place?” The original writing translates the text to say this: “Who can stand in the standing place of holiness?” He is reminding his readers that to be in the presence of God is to be in a place of holiness. To make this point more plain this is the CEV translation of the text; “Respect God when you come to church”.
On Thursday night I went to church to help my friend and hear one of the cities great preachers and the service in my opinion did not have much respect and reverence for God. Because when the choirs was singing everyone was in their seats but when it came time for the preaching the bathroom became important. Having to leave became important. Going to sleep was more important than hearing the word of God.
- Respect God with Your Participation
In Exodus 3, when the Lord drew Moses to Himself at the burning bush, Moses was reminded that he was on holy ground. In Exodus 27: 9-18, we find that God gave Moses the specifics on the court of the tabernacle (worship center). On the north and south sides, there was to be a linen fence of about 150 feet in length and on the east and west side, it was to be around 75 feet in length. It was to be made out of fine twisted linen. The tabernacle was to be surrounded by a fence made basically of white sheets. When I first read this, I thought to my self, what good is that? A knife would cut the linen into. But then the Lord showed me, it wasn’t to keep people out for God desires that we enter in before Him in worship, but rather, it was to remind the worshipper that he was no longer standing on common ground, but was in the presence of the Lord.
- Respect God with Your Presence
We need to remember that we are standing before the very presence of a holy God, we are in His house, standing in His presence, on Holy Ground. Our minds need to be on Him. He deserves our respectful reverence.
So many times, we come to worship the Lord, but we hurry to get out of His presence. We want that little touch and that’s all. By 11:45 our minds are already on the line at Shoney’s or Ryan’s. To truly worship God means that we don’t hurry Him. We can’t not glaze at the beauty of the Lord if we are glazing at our watches. Our minds should be totally focused upon Him. We lay everything else aside to get our minds upon Him. If we can’t, then we do what I have seen some do, we go to the altar and give it to God.
Satan loves for us to allow our minds to wander, he will do anything to keep our mind off the Lord. Remember that to stand in God’s holy hill is to stand in His presence and He deserves all of our attention. The old English word for worship was a combination of two words, worth and ship. To worship means that we declare to God how worthy He is for all that He has done for us.
- Respect God with Your Pronouncement of God
I see three important attributes of God in the text that we need to acknowledge as God.
A. God’s Creative power – v. 1-3
B. God’s Saving Power – v. 4-6
C. God’s Revealing Power – v. 7-10
III. WORSHIP MUST OFFER A RELEVANT RESPONSE.
We are told that God inhabits the praises of His people.
Psalm 22:3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabits the praises of Israel.
God lives in an environment of praise, so to make Him feel at home, we need to praise Him. Here’s the heart of the manner, God wants to fellowship with His kids. He wants to be a part of our “worship” services. He wants you to experience His presence.
Notice in verses 7-10, that there is a reference to the gates being lifted up. The Hebrew word is the word nasa which means to lift up, or carry away, to be swept away. Many Biblical scholars believe that David is speaking prophetically of the time that the ark of the covenant would be carried into the Temple built by Solomon, that the gates of the Temple would literally be swept away by the glory of the Lord. Others see the reference to the gates of the city of Jerusalem being swept open before the ark of God as David brings it to the city of Zion, to be placed on the Holy Hill.
I could not help but think as I read this, of how the Lord desires our fellowship and worship. He desires that the gates (heart) of our temple (body) be swept away before His great glory so that He can enter in. As great as the Lord is, He allows us the response of opening up our hearts to Him, so that He can enter in.
