Worship is a key subject in the Bible. However, when we speak about worship these days, we often have a picture about worship that is not exactly what is in the Bible. Often when we speak about worship, we think about a structured, time of corporate singing. The more I look at scripture, especially in the new testament, I realize that it isn’t any of those things:
It isn’t singing
It isn’t a corporate activity
It isn’t structured
You might be able to sing as a group in a structured worship at a meeting, but that is not the definition of worship in itself.
God created man to worship Him. There is an innate tendency in us to worship. If we do not worship the true God, we end up worshipping someone else or something else.
Jesus warned his disciples saying about a type of people in Matt 15:8, quoting Isaiah 29:13, he said:
“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”
Jesus taught about the kind of worship he desired to the most unlikely person. He was in an area called Sychar in Samaria and there, He waited at a well. And a Samaritan woman came to draw water. She was not only a woman, she was also a Samaritan, considered an inferior race. She was also a person who was living an life of questionable morality. In those times, a person of her background was considered too low to speak to for a Jewish rabbi. However, It is to her that Jesus expounded the type of worshippers that the Father is seeking.
“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
John 4:23-24
Example 1: Abraham
In studying scripture, the Bible has a principle of first mention. The first mention of the word worship occurs in Gen 22:5: “ He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
Abraham told his servants who accompanied him and his son Isaac to Mount Moriah that he and Isaac will go to the mountain, worship and then return to them. Remember that this was Isaac the son of promise, for whom he waited about 25 years. Abraham’s future was also centered around Isaac. However, in his obedience to the command of God, Abraham was willing to set aside everything that he held dear. Abraham’s worship was pleasing to God for several reasons:
He surrendered his will to seek God’s will
He submitted to God in faith
Trusted that God knew and will do what is best for him
For these reasons God was pleased with the worship that Abraham brought to Him.
When we have not enough for our needs, when situations around us are challenging, when we are not sure how to face the storms in our life, when we do not feel like singing and praying, when we still offer our praise to the Lord, it is a sacrifice that is pleasing unto Him.
Example 2: The Sinful Woman
The second instance we are going to look at is from Luke 7:36 onwards
A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
In John 4, we saw that the theory of worship was offered to a woman of questionable character. Here, the practical worship that Jesus loved and praised was a sinner, the town prostitute. She found out that the teacher was in the house of a pharisee and came to Him. She knelt down and began weeping and wetting his feet with her many tears. She then wiped them with her hair, kissed his feet and anointed them with expensive perfume. The Lord loved this expression of worship for
Her worship came from an overwhelming sense of gratitude & indebtedness to God
The woman brought what was expensive and gave it unto the LORD
She broke it only unto the LORD
She was so grateful for the LORD’s acceptance and forgiveness that she could not stop weeping. If we come before Him with self-righteousness we can never worship God. True worship always recognizes our utter sinfulness and His perfect holiness. Our melodious singing and skillful playing of instruments will not bring glory to God. But the heart that is aware of the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness can worship him in a broken voice and a noise unto the Lord. His forgiving grace is the central theme in our worship.
She brought the alabaster jar of perfume and broke it unto the LORD. She brought something that was costly and lavishly spent it on the LORD, not thinking about the cost. True worship forgets the cost and focuses on the Master. And in brokenness, like the jar was broken, we ought to offer our worship before the LORD.
The Place for Singing
The Bible certainly speaks about singing, even in the new testament.
In Matt 26:30, “When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”
Before going into the Garden of Gethsemane at the last night before He was crucified, Jesus and His disciples are recorded to have sung a hymn.
In Acts 16:25, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.”
Beaten, punished, chained, and kept in the innermost prison, Paul and Silas started praying and praising God through the singing of hymns loudly.
In both these instances we hear about very trying external circumstances and Jesus, our LORD, and Paul along with Silas sang unto the LORD. These are the only two instances in the New Testament where singing is recorded to have occurred other than in heavenly scenes in the book of Revelation. Maybe the LORD wanted to make a point about true worshipful singing.
Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs
Ephesians 5:18-20
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, 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, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible encourages us to speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. To sing and make melody in our heart to the LORD. This is an instruction given to all of us. God is pleased when we do that!
The parallel passage in Colossians 3:16-17 says this:
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. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Paul is encouraging believers to teach and admonish one another with the wisdom through the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with gratitude in our hearts to God!
Singing enables us as a group in unison to learn scripture, say words of adoration to God, declare our beliefs, encourage one another, and make declarations loudly to creation and to do all that in one voice. It’s a powerful and very useful tool, as long as we do it from the heart in a way that glorifies God. And in everything both passages strongly emphasizes that we give thanks to God. Thanksgiving is a very important part of our worship and our singing.
Finally, I want us to look at these two portions:
the verse in Ephesians 5:18 before the verse we read says be filled with the Spirit and
the version in Colossians 3:16 says “let the word of Christ dwell in us” – Jesus said, “Sanctify them by Thy truth, Thy word is truth.
Essentially these two portions are telling us to worship God in Spirit and in truth.
The key in worship is to know who God is, understand His person and His character, and we fall before the LORD with the awe of that understanding and we cry out unto Him, “O LORD, my God!” with a deep sense of our sinfulness and His holiness and our need for Him. That is true worship that pleases God.
May the Lord enable us to worship Him in a way that pleases Him.