REAL WORSHIP
As a child, I grew up going to a Baptist church every Sunday where we had a morning and evening service - singing hymns that were put in between other features such as Bible readings and prayers and before and after the preaching. It was a good church, but it gave me no experience or concept of real worship - until I was baptised in the Holy Spirit at the age of 18. It was then that I started to go to the nearest Pentecostal church which was in Tunbridge Wells, the same town I travelled to every day for school. The church was small – mostly retired people but they were all lovely. I was the youngest person there and – as you may imagine, they welcomed me with open arms!
Every Sunday morning the first hour or so of the service was ‘open worship’ where anyone could start a song or pray, or give a tongue or an interpretation, a prophecy or a short exhortation. This was something new for me, and it was a revelation! That is how I began to learn what real worship is.
Jesus gave the best definition of real worship in His conversation with the woman that He met at the well in Samaria when He said:
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“A time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23)
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From this, we see first of all that God is not seeking after WORSHIP
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- He is looking for real WORSHIPPERS.
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If I can say this reverently, God is not so self-obsessed that He NEEDS or demands to be worshipped.
He is self-existent and does not need anything from us, but He does respond to real worshippers who set themselves to really worship Him and give Him all the glory.
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Jesus taught us that the only way to be a real worshipper is to worship God in the Spirit and in truth.
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From this, we see that we can only truly worship God if we allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit.
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Paul said: “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:19)
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This is what those dear saints were doing at that little church in Tunbridge Wells. It wasn’t always perfect – they were humans who could sometimes start a song in the wrong key – but they were trying to get it right and the Spirit was moving among us!
Another glimpse we get of true worship in the early Church is found in Colossians 3:1:
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“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”
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This kind of worship was the everyday practice of the Church, meeting in homes in New Testament times but it is something that got lost in Church history with the Romanisation of church life - particularly promoted by the Emperor Constantine (306-337 AD) who forbade Christians to meet in homes and instead built them huge basilicas to meet in.
This soon completely destroyed real spontaneous, Spirit-led worship.
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Sadly, we are still living with the consequences of that today.
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The other aspect of the kind of worship that Jesus described to the woman at the well was worship in TRUTH. I understand this to mean that in order to truly worship we need to be open and honest before God.
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We cannot worship God if we are harbouring unrepented sins.
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Nor can we truly worship if there are unresolved or unforgiven conflicts with others.
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Jesus told us to leave our gift on the altar and go and be reconciled with anyone who we are not in a good place with - and then come back and worship God (Matthew 5:24).
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“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:6-9).
Clean hearts are essential for true worshippers: “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” (Psalm 24:3-4)
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So true worship involves being led by the Spirit and walking in the truth before God.
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The main Old Testament word for worship is shachah which means “to bow down.” This gives us a wonderful insight into real worship - it’s bowing down to God in adoration and bowing ourselves - bowing our lives to God.
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When we give ourselves to God with a purified heart - real worship happens!
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Psalm 95:6 says (and notice God is not demanding this – the Psalmist is encouraging us to do it):
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“Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker for He is our God.”
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So often people think that worship is singing and because they are excited about the song they are singing - that is worship. Worship is a heart thing and can happen without singing or even saying a word.
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Singing a worship song can help us to worship – it is like getting into a little car that carries us along – but equally a song can get in the way of worship.
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I’m sorry to say this, but a lot of the songs we sing in the church these days are too long – too many words with music that has no melody and if we did meet in a more intimate group to worship as they did in New Testament times we would find it difficult to easily start the song or remember the words. Worship leaders – please take note!
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Real worship songs enable us to sing about God and better still - directly TO God.
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“Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.” (Psalm 100:2)
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The main New Testament word for worship is proskuneo = to kiss. This gives us further insight into real worship. You can bow to someone from any distance but to kiss someone you have to get close - there is contact, it is intimate. This is appropriate because Jesus brought us into close proximity with the Father and with himself - “Kiss the Son” (Psalm 2:12)
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The woman who came to Jesus and anointed him and washed his feet with her tears and then kissed them is a beautiful illustration of someone worshipping without words or song - out of a heart of gratitude and devotion to Jesus (Luke 7:36-47).
As a young pastor, I took what I had learned about worship and encouraged the little group of people that I had the privilege to lead, to worship as they did in New Testament times every time we met together.
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One of the teachings that helped us a lot was from the Tabernacle as suggested by Psalm 100:4:
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“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.”
The best way to be a worshipper is, to begin with thanksgiving to God. That can be about anything that we are grateful to Him for and then we go from there into His courts with praise.
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As we go on praising Him - because we are all priests who are cleansed by the blood with feet and hands that are washed with the water through God’s word (Ephesians 5:26) which was all provided in the outer court of the tabernacle, we can then enter into the Holy Place where the presence of God gets stronger.
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There were many times when we did that and eventually, we got into the “Holy of Holies” where we really experienced the presence of God!
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I miss those times – you can only do it with like-minded people and it takes time, they have to be ready to tarry for the Spirit and I highly recommend it.
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So, in conclusion, let me be very clear.
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You can be a worshipper with any style of worship
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– lighting effects, jumping around, slow songs, fast songs, liturgy, stillness, open worship or led from the front worship
– IF you bow yourself in adoration to God and tell Him how much you love Him – it’s as simple as that.
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Finally, let us consider the worshippers in heaven. The four living creatures (represented in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle by the cherubim overshadowing the Mercy Seat where the shekinah glory of God appeared) are the closest beings to God Himself.
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Notice what they do:
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“The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within.
And they do not rest day or night, saying: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8)
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They never stop worshipping God – how can they do that?
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May I suggest that they are full of eyes because they are constantly seeing new aspects of God
– and every time they do, they fall down in worship.
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They NEVER COME TO THE END of seeing how wonderful He is!
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They are lost in wonder love and praise!
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THAT is true worship!
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