Enjoy Worshiping Together

There are few things more satisfying than joining together with believers and worshiping God.  When we get together on Sunday mornings (or whenever) we are engaging in an ages-old celebration.  It is a celebration of Christ, a celebration of His sacrifice, and a celebration of all we are as His body, His Church.  This is why it is so important that we would never forsake coming together.  In coming together, we are loving God and loving one another.  In truth, let us never forget this!

John 4:24–God is Spirit, So Worship Him in Spirit

John 4:24–"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

I would like to begin by stating what this text is not:

• It is not the singular text of Scripture of how worship is to be done.  In some ways, the whole of Scripture is concerned primarily with the task of worshiping God.
• It is not about how not to worship (sorry for the double negative).
• It is not a verse primarily about God's person (although to say that God is spirit certainly concerns the constitution of God, i.e that He is spirit).

Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the positive:

• It is about the difference between worship under the Old Covenant and how worship will be under the New Covenant in Christ.
• It is about how the Temple will no longer be the primary place of worship for the believers in God.
• This assertion comes as the emphasis of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, indicating that, at the very least, that this new type of worship under the New Covenant will be for all people not just the Jews.
• Also of interest is that this seems to be of importance to John as it is included so early in his gospel account.

To be sure, this has been the most cursory exposition of this oft-quoted text but I hope it is enough to get you interpreting more accurately for yourselves.

For the whole thing see John 4:1-42.

Romans 12:1–Present Your Bodies to God

Romans 12:1–"I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

Christianity speaks often of devotion in spiritual terms as if worship was primarily some esoteric, mystical activity that required barely more than a willing spirit.  But this verse has something else to say.  It is a profound thing to say that our spiritual worship requires...the proper use of our bodies.

How many of us can say that we use our bodies as if they were instruments for worship?!

But this is precisely what this verse is commanding of us, that we would treat our bodies not as appendages to serve our own whims of enjoyment but as instruments of worship!

Let us commit to treat our bodies with this sort of reverence, recognizing that our bodies are to be our foremost tool for sincere worship.

A Note On Christmas before Christmas

Family, friends, feasts, gifts, and...worship?

Christmas brings with it so many seasonal delicacies.  Be it the awesome food that we wait all year to devourer, the time with family that doesn't seem like such an inconvenience, and the quest for gifts. And while each of these could be considered one of the treats of the season, each of them pales in comparison to the true, deeper meaning and worth of Christmas: the birth of the Messiah, the Savior, Christ Jesus.

The heart and essence of Christmas ultimately lies in the birth of Jesus, the prophesied Messiah.  The reality of His birth should render a sincere adoration and worship within us. But how easily we are drawn astray to those other staples of Christmas with little regard for the weightier, more divine narrative at work in the Christmas narrative.

So, as Christmas eve is upon us I simply ask that we would all keep our focus securely fixed upon the greatness of God!  Amen!

Psalm 150:1-2–Praise the Lord!

Psalm 150:1-2–"Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens! Praise Him for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His excellent greatness!"

This passage is from the last chapter of the book of Psalms.  It is an utterance of praise and it offers a great look into how worship could or, maybe, should be offered.  Consider the content of these brief verses: adoration, praise and adoration focused on addressing God's greatness and His great deeds.  In many ways, aside from being a great utterance of praise itself this is a wonderful example for how we should worship.

And while this particular post is not intended to go through the whole task of defining worship, it is enough to say that we would well to take this passage as an example to follow in our own praise.

Psalm 95:1-2–Come to Him With Songs of Praise!

Psalm 95:1-2–"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!"

This is as much a prescription for worship as it is an exhortation.  It is a simple thing to read, that we are to make a joyful noise to the Lord, but it is another thing altogether for us to actually make a joyful noise to the Lord.  However, it would seem that this is precisely what this passage is compelling us to do.  When considering this, I ask myself: what does it mean to make a joyful noise to the Lord?

My response to the question is that making a joyful noise to the Lord requires at least two things: (1) a right perspective, and (2) a willing heart.  A right perspective means that we would see the greatness of God and the distinct beauty of His creation.  This can only result in a response of awe and praise.  It is at this point that a willing heart leaps into action, so that we can pair that praise with deed.

In a sense, this is the very essence of worship.  Let us make it our aim to bring a sincere joyful noise to the Lord!

What Are the Obstacles to Worship?

As a worship leader, there is a tendency to think of leading worship as a task in creating moments.  Some of my colleagues do this through developing worship services that are emotionally compelling and musical excellent, as if the production quality and the emotionality were the key to effective worship leading.  The goal, ultimately, is to create an environment conducive to heartfelt, authentic worship.

However, I fear that this perspective, though appealing, might miss the point about what worship is and why sometimes it can be so difficult.  In truth, the great hindrance to worship is not environment or whether the worship leader is compelling.  No!  The ultimate obstruction to true, authentic worship is and has always been a heart matter.  Worship is only possible from a penitent posture that is honest with self as it is honest with God.

This is why it is so important that whenever we find that we are struggling to enter into times of worship that we not look at the particulars of what we're doing but we would rather assess where our hearts are at. 

A Moment of Praise

While it must be said that Christians are called to live lives of praise and worship, it should also be said that life is a series of moment strung together.  Using this understanding of life, as but string of moments, we can begin to reduce life's great endeavors to the value of individual moments.  What I mean to say is that when we think of the devotions of life and the disciplines that conjoin and advance these devotions.

Because of this, today I exhort you (and me) to value the sincerity and the pleasure of the moment. Every moment is a powerful opportunity to be and to do the will of God and to praise His name.  Let us take this attitude and posture among us to take advantage of every single moment to worship God's name!

A Statement on Beauty

Life is full of beauty.  This is a self-evident truth.  We see beauty seemingly everywhere we look, from the harvest rains to the newborn babe.  While this is a right and good thing to assess to beauty, it is a different thing altogether to worship God for that which is beautiful, instead of focusing uncritically on the thing itself.  In other words, it is an easy trap to fall into to worship the beautiful instead of He who created beauty.

This other step, the step from assessing beauty to worshiping God, is the necessary step so that we can realize the privilege of beauty in its sheer and profound fullness.  For if we take forgranted the accessibility and presence of beauty, we have, if at least inavertedly, taken forgranted God Himself by that same token.

Thus when we see the vibrant beauty that fills this created universe, when we are blessed to see that which is provocative and glorious, our proper response needs to be praise for God.  Mere enjoyment of the beautiful thing, it turns out, is insufficient to affect the heart until it unless the heart is turned to face God in worship.  Because of all this, we should strive to to see beauty as it is: a beautiful reason to worship God!Beaut

Philippians 4:4–Rejoice in Him

Philippians 4:4–"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice."

Rejoicing in the Lord is one of the most joyfully pleasurable experiences in life.  It is about worship.  And without fail the most fulfilling occurrences in my live have been those moments in which, because of the profundity of the instance, I have had the distinct pleasure of praising and rejoicing God.  To be sure, these times have not all been inside the sanctuary of the church but have often occurred at odd times and strange places, like driving in rush hour or paying my bill at the grocery check-out line.

Rejoicing in the Lord is tantamount to worshiping with thankfulness.  It is about practicing a posture of praise in our everyday life.  Moreover, it is about engaging that practice into everyday moments so that the right time for worship becomes every moment of every day.  This is our hope and this is what Paul is compelling, commanding us to do.  Let us then take this call to rejoice as serious as it is meant to be taken!

Amen.

Psalm 95:6–Let Us Bow Before the Lord

Psalm 95:6–"Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us knell before the Lord, our Maker!"

Reverence, the sincere act of offering honor and adoration, is an aspiration that we have perhaps lost as a people.  Our entertainment barely bats its eyes to criticize or parody any form of reverence and is even apt to deface God Himself if it can be construed as some joke.  But this is, in the end, a lie told to us by the father of lies, Satan.  It is a lie that deceives into believing that we are no longer creatures created by the Holy Lord, but that we are, in fact, creators of our own selves.  Again, this is a lie.

The truth is that we are creatures that have been created by God Himself.  This truth informs everyone one of our decisions and scenarios in life, whether we accept it in belief or not.  It is, it turns out, inescapable.  Yet much of our lives is predicated upon the deceptions of pride and vanity so that our time is expelled on uselessness, meaninglessness, and shallow superficiality.  But it was never meant to be so!

God has ordained that we bow before Him in humble praise and adoration.  This is not for His benefit, but for ours.  Humans are fueled by offering worship just as cars run on gasoline.  It is important, then, that we constantly remind ourselves of this truth so that we can run at optimum performance by putting in the 'right' fuel, which turns out to be a steady diet of reverently praising the Holy Lord Almighty,

Let us then always keep this focus before us and take seriously the call to worship in our lives.

1 Cor. 6:19-20–Glorify God in Your Body

1 Corinthians 6:19-20: "Or do you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body."

When we give ourselves to Christ, a major part of the ordeal is that we are given renewed vision to see life as it is and to understand who we are in Him.  This means, among many things, that we began see that our bodies as a place of praise, a site for worship that we take with us wherever we may go.  In other words, our bodies are temples for God and we are commanded here in 1 Corinthians to remember this truth and to live lives that reflect this recognition.  Let us then always keep this truth before us as we strive to live glorifying God with every pore in our bodies!

Psalm 150:6–Let Everything that has Breath Praise

Psalm 150:6: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!"

This is the last verse of the book of Psalms.  It caps the attitude of 150 chapters of prayer, praise, and prophecy.  It is, at the very least, a book of worship.  The verses therein are poetry of the highest ilk, singularly focused on relating to the Lord.  This final verse of this exceptional analogy of worship is both a prescription as much as it is a prophecy.  That is to say that it prescribes for us God's intention for everything, all of His creation to praise.  But it is also a prophecy that at some predetermined point everything that has breath will praise the Lord.  That is a day I look forward to with every atom in my being.  Amen!

Psalm 119:7–Praising God Right Requires Knowing What is Right

Psalm 119:7–"I will praise You with an upright heart, when I learn Your righteous rules."

The question is: how can I praise God in the most appropriate way that would please His heart the most?  The answer: to learn His commandments.

When we know the commandments of the Lord and we apply them into our hearts we become able to fully worship, body, mind, and soul.  It is not that we are unable, per se, to praise Him apart from the commandments.  It's just that if we truly desire to praise Him we will desire to please Him through obedience to His commandments.  There is, as it were, a direct correlation between our obedience to His Word and to our ability to worship.  We would do well, then, to take seriously the call to worship in Spirit and in truth, making sure that the truth is planted firmly within our lives as deeply as we are rooted in Christ!

Romans 12:1-2–Worship in Body and Mind

Romans 12:1-2: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,  that by testing you may discern the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

This passage is about worshiping God in body and mind.  It is about giving oneself to God by treating your body as it is: a living sacrifice to God.  While this says much about God and who we are as His creatures.  We belong to God, therefore we should be all the more willing to expel ourselves for God in worship and faith.

As for our minds, the key phrase is, "be transformed by the renewal of your mind."  This is to say that our minds have been tainted due to the pervasiveness of sin and need to be 'renewed' so that we may be able to discern the will of God. In the briefest sense, the renewal of the mind is about Bible study and prayer.  Through these God renews our mind by the power of His Holy Spirit.

Let us commit these verses to memory and apply them to our hearts, our minds, and our lives!

Spirit & Truth: Requisites for Worship

Jesus says these words in John: "God is spirit and those who would worship Him must do it in spirit and in truth."  (John 4:24).

The context here is the scenario with Jesus at the well and the woman from Samaria.  Jesus has just convinced her that He is the Christ because He has told her about her life.  She is confused by this stranger but she marvels at His intimate knowledge of who she is.  She then makes the statement about places of worship, pointing to the reality that the Jews believed that only the Temple was the appropriate place to worship.  This statement has a whole host of connotation: not only is she referring to the place of worship, but she is also referring to the what of worship, namely, the ceremonial Law of Torah.

Jesus, though, indicates that a time is coming and has now arrived in Him that the worshipers of God will worship God purely, in spirit and in truth.  Jesus' statement is remarkable because it flies in the face of the presumptions of Judaism of His day, which saw the worship of God as an ethnically exclusive activity.  For anyone to truly worship they would have to become a Jew first.

Additionally, Jesus is taking the monopoly of worshiping God out of the hands of the Jews and giving it to the scope of humanity.  Now, anyone and everyone can worship by these requirements, as God had always intended: in spirit and in truth.  While this might seem, at first glance, to be enigmatic Jesus is saying that worship has a specific energy, the spirit, and a specific content, the truth.

This energy is the Holy Spirit.  He is the exciter, the comforter, the empower, and the initiator of worship.  He is the spirit of worship, and He is the One who initiates and activates the worshiper's heart for worship.

This content, the truth, is the Word of God.  It is the Word itself that forms the backbone for any and all worship.  If worship is not based on or does not come from the Word of God, then it is not worship.  There are a great many things that claim to be worship but lack the Word of God, that is, Christ.  Because of this, they cannot be worship.

In the end, the Spirit works in conjunction with the Word in the worshiper's worship of God.  If we desire to worship, then, we need only prayer for the Spirit and engage in His Word.  In this way, worship is made available for every human who calls on the name of the God, crying out that Jesus is Lord and King!

Worship: Something Altogether Different

Worship, in that modern-day evangelical world, has become shorthand lingo referring to a musical genre or some sort formula for congregational services.  To be sure, this has been a centuries-long reduction of what it means to worship from an all-encompassing way of life shrunken to an hour long mass.  In the end, to think of worship as merely musical or to confine worship to an act of service would be to diminish worship and sever its theological density and meaning, rendering the worshiper confused, disjointed, and fractured, unable to worship truly for their lack of understanding.

At the introduction, the word worship immediately brings the limitations of language to bear upon the conversation.  Because worship, as it is commonly known, has generally been used as an adjective, i.e. worship music, worship service, worship time.  This betrays that worship serves, most fully, as a verb, as in, worship is an activity.  This is not to detract from worship being used to describe various activities or times, but worship should be thought of more than merely a type or form of an activity.

Think of music.  Because evangelicals have made worship a musical genre, the part of the active worship participator has been moved to the role preferential spectator.  Now worship has been deemed a taste.  As if the one who would be the active worship participator could actually choose if they wanted to worship or not like it was as common a decision as deciding whether they wanted italian food for dinner.  This is not to say that music is not a medium for worship, rather, it is to highlight the apparent deficiency in the minds and hearts of worshipers that has come about from a misconception.

Worship, at its irreducible base, requires body and head, Church and Christ.  This is one of those difficult things to understand: there is a unity, a communal requirement of worship.  Although it occurs on a personal, private level to a limited degree, it is primarily a community activity, requiring a lifting of one voice from many to sing with one accord that Jesus is Lord.  Worship is a word that describes an active worship.  The deficient focus, in the past, has spent to much time on the personal aspect of the adjective to the declension of the community verb.  In the end, though, these are not mutually exclusive ideas, far from it, for they are both necessary for worship to be.

Remember Jesus' words: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." (Matt. 18:20).  Jesus is not undervaluing the individual in the slightest, however, He is laying out a community requirement of worship.  Often times this verse is employed for matter of prayer, but its context deals with binding and loosing, the very activity of worship needs to be focused on these elements.

In addition to the community requirement of worship, two other factors must be present, namely, Spirit and Truth.  Again we turn to the words of Jesus: "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him." (John 4:23).  The truth is the Word, which is Christ.  The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, which is the indwelling within the hearts of believers.

The Truth is the content, the Spirit is the outpouring of emotion and energy, both focused on worshiping the Father.  In this way, worship engages with every member of the Trinity in their respective realms of influence and function.  The point, then, is not to designate specific activities or certain tasks as worship but, rather, to fulfill the greatest commandment in every posture, remembering the words of Paul: "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." (Col 3:17).

Our goal and intent, as worshipers, is to join together with one, unified voice to offer sincere praise, adoration, exaltation, and thanksgiving to the Father, through His Son, Christ Jesus, which is empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit, who baptizes those whom He is pleased to call His own.  If we understand worship in this way, we would cease to lack evangelistic energy or mission or focus, and we would no longer think of worship as a common spectator activity.  Let us then join together in song so loud and unified that the foundations of the earth are shaken!

Don't Want to Go through the Motions

For the past few years, I have been leading musical worship at my church.  Nearly every Sunday, I pull my guitar out of the case and play worship songs in an attempt to praise God with sincerity and passion.  However, despite my best intentions, there are times in which I, a worship leader, find myself "going through the motions."

I can become so focused on playing the right notes and singing the right melodies that my heart can be so unengaged that I cannot call it worship, its devolved to just playing music.  This is one of the sad realities of life that has challenged my conceptions of what worship is and has pushed me to seek after God with more eagerness and energy.

What I've discovered is that worship and getting into that place of worship is a whole-person endeavor.  When I think that worship can be "turned on" like a switch, I will fail.  Only when humility and reverence consume every thought, word, and action has true worship occurred.

This may challenges concepts of worship that are fragmented and inaccurate, namely, the idea that we can simply walk into a sanctuary, sing the words on the screen or in the hymnal, and it will be sufficient to constitute actual worship.  Instead, worship, true worship, requires preparation and intentionality.  Only when we lay it all on the line with sincerity and humility can worship occur.

Jesus, in quoting the words of Moses, says it best:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind ( Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37)."

Worship demands all aspects of a person and nothing less.  Let us the take this posture among us so that we do not find ourselves going through the motions, but that the Spirit of God flows through us!

Loving the Creation or the Creator

A lot can be discerned about the state of a person's heart by what they worship and what they put their energy in.  Scripture says that their are two possibilities for humans to worship.  Quite bluntly, we either worship creation or the Creator.  Needless to say, the latter is always to be preferred; however, overcoming the former is a difficult but necessary part of accomplishing in accomplishing the task of putting the Creator first.

Faith deals with jus this thing.  When we come to God in faith, we are consciously changing our focus of worship.  Our previous, fleshly focus is transformed and sanctified by the blood of Christ Jesus and transfixed on the Holy Lord Almighty.

For this reason, a great potentially convicting daily practice for us to engage in is a "worship check".  A simple moment of self-assessment and awareness is a great way for us to see where our hearts are at and in what way we may need to refocus.

Sin, in its most literal sense, is about missing the mark.  The etymology of sin comes from archery.  To sin is to aim and hit something other than what we should.  So, when we focus on that which is not God and less-than God, we are in fact sinning.  This is a harsh but true reality.  And the road of destruction is a moving sidewalk that leads us astray a single step at a time.  Let us then take care to keep ourselves worshiping God and not His creation!

Faith like Hannah

The story of Samuel is one of the greatest stories in all of Scripture.  His role in shaping the nation of Israel is unmistakable and remarkable.  The two books that bear his name tell the story of Israel transitioning from the time of the judges to a kingdom with a king, and he plays a major role in the transition.  And though the stories of Saul and David often overshadow the story of Samuel, it is a fertile one worth mining.

Hannah, Samuel's mother, was barren.  She had been praying to God for several years to have Him bless her with child by her husband, Elkanah.  Every year, Elkanah took Hannah and his other wife, Peninnah, to Shiloh to worship and offer sacrifices to the Lord.  Hannah would weep bitterly because of her barrenness that was exacerbated by Peninnah's chiding.

One year, Hannah was in the street one night in Shiloh during her families yearly pilgrimage when the priest, Eli, noticed her.  Eli thought Hannah was drunk and told her to leave for her debauchery.  But Hannah cried out that she was not drunk but stricken by her barrenness, explaining that she was troubled in spirit from her condition.  Eli blesses the woman and tells her that God will grant her petition because of her faith.

In response, the Lord blesses Hannah and she becomes pregnant with Samuel.  Hannah is overjoyed by God's faithfulness.  She determines to devote her son to the Lord and gives him to the service of Eli and to the work of the Lord.  Though she visits him yearly, she gives up her son to the Lord.  In doing so, she offers one of the most beautiful songs in all of Scripture, echoed by Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Gospels.

The point of the story is submission in thankfulness.  Though Hannah had been struggling her whole life in barrenness, waiting for a child, when God finally blessed her with a child, she offered the child up to God as a sacrifice and offering.  Hannah is an example of what true devotion looks like.  She gave her everything to the Lord with utter joy.  We should strive to take the same mind among us in offering our best to God with all thankfulness and faith.