I will say it. I feel that so much of the Christian Church is ignorant when it comes to worship.
But I have noticed that there is always a buzz around this word worship. Here at theTURN, we teach that worship is our response to God declaring His worth as He has revealed Himself to us. So worship must be based off of knowledge. You simply can't worship what you do not know.
AW Tozer said, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him." The more we grow in the knowledge of God, the deeper our worship is cultivated.
So I give you three thoughts on worship in the Church:
1. According to John 4, worship is not about where you are or what the conditions around you are. Worship is about what you know to be true about God, who He is, what He has done. It is a crippled kind of worship, I think, that so many people experience because they go to a worship service, and they have only a superficial understanding of divine things. Many just have a simple understanding that Jesus died for them and not much else. The great deep profound realities of the nature of God are withheld from them. They have not studied Him. The great history of what God has done both in mercy and in judgment is withheld as seemingly ancient and irrelevant. And so, worship no matter how loud the music is and no matter how rhythmical it is and no matter how seductive it is to our emotions is thin and superficial and rather empty because it’s uninformed. It is what I call recreation worship. Worship that is not backed by any true depth of knowledge.
As worship leaders, we must understand that an uninformed person who knows only a very little bit about God could sit in the middle of the most magnificent music and it cannot lift him above his knowledge. And a believer whose mind and soul is flooded with the true knowledge of God, who He is and what He has done, can sit alone in the middle of a busy intersection and worship God, hearing only the sound of cars and trucks passing by.
2. Another point: In the Church, we talk a lot about ministry. We talk a lot about service and it is important no doubt. But ministry or service is that which comes down to us from the Father through the Son by the Spirit in the believer. Worship is that which goes up from the believer by the Spirit through the Son to the Father. Ministry descends, worship ascends, and both are critical. But worship prevails. Worship is first and ministry follows. How many leaders in the Church need to understand this! Ministry will not descend until worship ascends.
3. I recall your attention again to that great statement which is repeated throughout the gospels from Jesus, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” That’s a true worshiper. True worship is defined by obedience and praise is simply the overflow of that loving heart consumed with the desire to obey and honor the Lord. We are made worshipers.
And as pastors, we don’t have to artificially generate it. It’s the most consistent thing that a believer does, is worship. All you need to do is inform it, just inform it. That’s why we as pastors must teach the Word of God. I have been asked like many others while in the ministry, “How in the world can your people worship when you give these long sermons? You take up all the time preaching?” And my response must be, “How in the world could anybody worship if you didn’t know the truth about God? And the more you know, the more informed your worship is, and the more informed your worship is, the more you are a true worshiper.”
Check back this week for more thoughts on worship.
Help us Lord to be true worshipers who worship in Spirit and in truth!
pcraig
