Walk

333. Worship

 

You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:22-24).  God is seeking worshippers. 

 

What is worship? 

We need to find a good definition because so many people misunderstand this word.  We go to church to go to a “worship service”.  But that is not the meaning of the word. I do not believe that I am qualified to give a total definition of the word as there are so many forms of worship.  I like the following idea of a puppy dog licking its master and wagging its tail.  The pet dog is worshipping out of love.  No command that the master can give the dog can cause the dog to wag its tail and lick the master’s hand.  But if there is real love there, nothing can stop the dog from wagging its tail.  The Strong’s Greek Concordance defines worship as, “meaning to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand.”  Imagine a puppy dog wagging its tail in love with his master.

Worship is reserved for God only.And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve’’” (Matthew 4:9-10).

Let’s break down worship into three types (there may be more):

1. Spiritual worship is sacrificing your entire life to God, turning your back on the world, and renewing your mind with the Word of God.  Romans 12:1-3 (NIV, 1984) says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

In the book of Genesis Abraham demonstrates worship by making the ultimate sacrifice of his son.  “And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you” (Genesis 22:5, KJV).

2. Worship is when we are in God’s presence.  When we are in a church service or a revival meeting, the preacher, or musicians may be bringing on the presence of the Lord.  We sense it and feel it.  We begin to understand that we are in the presence of the Great I AM!  We begin to sense how great He is and how small we are; our only response is worship.  It may be absolutely silent without a word, or we may begin to dance; there are no set rules or laws for worship.  It is a personal love language between you and the Lord.

Worship is sometimes mistaken with praise.  We decide to praise the Lord when we sing and give Him thanks, and let Him know how much we love Him.  But worship comes only with the presence of God.  When we are in His presence we know that He is God and we are clay vessels.  Something happens inside of us and we bow down (if not physically, at least emotionally) in reverence to the Creator and the One Who loves us.

Some people can worship in a congregation when they are in God’s presence  (worship # 2), but when they go home they don’t know about worship # 1, sacrificing their entire life as a spiritual worship.  I believe that God wants His people to live a lifestyle of worship, 24 hours per day.

3. Worship is when all seems hopeless and we are feeling unworthy.  “You, O LORD, remain forever; Your throne from generation to generation” (Lamentations 5:19).

 

How can you worship God when you are feeling unworthy?

What can we learn from Hannah about worship?  Her story is recorded in 1 Samuel 1:5-20.  Hannah was one of the most embarrassed, disgraced women in Israel because she could not bear children.  To make matters worse, her husband had children with another woman, Peninnah (his other wife), and she mocked Hannah, vexed her, and provoked her to feeling totally unworthy.  Finally, Hannah went to God in prayer and did not pull any punches; she was in distress and weeping bitterly.  Eli the priest saw her lost in prayer, she was speaking in her heart, her lips were moving but there was no sound.  Eli thought she was drunk.  My guess is that she had come into the presence of God and that God had counted her prayer as real worship.  Not only was her prayer answered, but also her son was Samuel the great prophet and servant of God.

The word ‘worship’ comes from ‘Worth-scribe.’  In England they still call the judges, your worth scribe.  It infers being worthy, having dignity.

The Golden Altar in the Holy Place was the last piece of furniture in that inner court (in addition to the Table of Shewbread and the Golden Lampstand) that one would come to prior to going through the final veil into the Holy of Holies and into the very presence of God.  The altar was about 3 feet high and 18 inches square.  It symbolizes several things including our emotions and worship.

As we walk through the inner court of the Tabernacle, the Holy Place, we first encounter the Table of Shewbread that symbolizes our will, then the Golden Lampstand with its candlesticks symbolizing our mind and the Holy Spirit; and lastly, we come to the Golden Altar that symbolizes our emotions. We encounter each of those pieces in the order of their importance: will, mind, and emotions.  We cannot trust our mind (our thoughts) if our will is off.  And we cannot trust our emotions if the first two (our will and mind) are out of order.  God wants us to be “whole people” with emotions that are in their proper place.  He does not want us to be robots unable to express ourselves.

Sometimes our emotions are telling us funny things, like, “You are unworthy,” or “You are a freak,” or they put on us many other slanderous names.   Sometimes our very lives tell us things, like, “You can’t do anything, everybody is better than you,” etc.

What does worship have to do with feeling unworthy?  If we do not believe in God, then our unworthiness is something that we blame on ourselves or on others.  We try to manipulate others and try to perform better so that we can “feel better about ourselves.”

 

How can you worship God when you are feeling fear?

Sometimes our emotions are telling us to fear.  Fear is simply defined as honoring someone or something, or a set of circumstances as more powerful than you, and with the power to hurt or destroy you.  However, 365 times in the Bible God tells us not to fear.  This is a command.  God would not command this if He knew we were not capable of it.

I believe that God created each one of us with the capacity to fear.  We cannot help but to fear something.  Is that fair?

The Proverbs tell us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.  So the solution to fear, the way to fear not, is not to try to stop “fearing”, but it is to fear something greater.  To stop fear, we must find something or someone greater to fear so that our lesser fear will be swallowed up.

God wants us to use the “Replacement Method.”

We are commanded to fear God.  But this does not mean that we are to fear that He will destroy us.  No! He loves us.  We need to honor Him as more powerful than anything else that could touch our lives!  We need to know how awesome He is.  Yes, He is capable of destroying us, but He wants to save us and love us.  Yes, He is capable of destroying our enemies, and He already has done it at the Cross.  Now He just needs us to agree with Him, no matter how our emotions “feel”.  When we honor Him in this way, we are fearing Him properly, and this is an act of worship. 

Look at how these Scriptures connect fear and worship.

“But the LORD, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, Him you shall worship, and to Him you shall offer sacrifice” (2 Kings 17:36).

“But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy; in fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple” (Psalm 5:7).

The NIV version translates the fear of God as reverence.  “But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple” (Psalm 5:7, NIV 1984).

 “O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth” (Psalm 96:9, KJV).

 “Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters” (Revelation 14:7, KJV).

“Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest” (Revelation 15:4, KJV).

 

The Golden Altar in the Holy Place represents our emotions. 

The Priest always had to offer two things at the Golden Altar: blood and a very special and expensive mixture of incense.  We come to the Golden Altar knowing that the blood of Jesus has accomplished a real miracle, that He took our place.  If we know that, it does not matter how we feel at that point; our emotions can be swapped with Jesus’.  The only thing that matters is that Jesus actually took our lousy place of unworthiness and fear and made us worthy and righteous and capable of “fearing Him.”

At that point, the incense of our praise goes up as a sweet smell to God.  That is when we really enter into worship!

It is not something that we can make up or fake or do, it is just like being in love with a person, either you are or you are not. 

We come into His presence through the veil and we find the two awesome Cherubim (angels) guarding the Ark of the Covenant.  On top of the Ark is the Mercy seat, and there is where the blood is sprinkled.  Inside of the Ark is the Law which symbolizes God’s character, the manna which symbolizes His provisions and His very being, and Aaron’s almond rod that budded supernaturally symbolizing our service.  Notice that all three things that we need –  His character, His provisions, and His service – are all covered by the blood and the Mercy Seat.  Everything that we need is behind this veil and the way to get to it is worship, not just praise, but worship.  Worship is something you cannot just DO – it is just your reaction to being in love with Jesus based upon how much He loves us.

One of my favorite examples in the Bible is the woman in Luke 7:36-50 who poured her ointment on Jesus and washed His feet with her tears and her hair.  Because she was forgiven much she was capable of loving much.

Isaiah 6 says that the year that Isaiah’s human hope had died (that hope being the awesome King Uzziah), he also saw the Lord.  The angels were surrounding the throne crying, “Holy, holy holy,” and the doorposts were shaken.  I can only imagine the smoke, fire, and shaking in that situation.  Isaiah’s response was that he could feel what a sinner he was in God’s presence and he cried out for help.  One of the angels flew down with a live coal from the bronze altar and cleansed Isaiah with it.  Then Isaiah heard the Lord speak.  The presence of God is powerful when it leads us to repentance.

 

Worthy are you Lord!

The Scroll.  In Revelation 4 the veil was pulled back and John saw into Heaven, into Heaven as it is today, i.e. today’s Holy of Holies.  He saw people praising God saying, “Worthy are You, Lord, because You created all things.”

But in Revelation 5:12 they are saying, “Worthy are You, Lord, because You are the Lamb.”  Their worship was perfected when they realized all that Jesus had done for them, that He was their Lamb that was stripped naked and beaten in front of a laughing crowd and hung on a criminal’s cross.  His self-worth was stripped from Him, the Creator.  He took our place.

Worship Him! They were praising the Lamb in Revelation 5 because He was the only One who was worthy to unroll the Scroll.  When the Scroll was unrolled, the rest of the Book of Revelation looks like Hell on earth.  What is it?  I suggest that the Scroll is the verdict due mankind for his sin.  It is the penalty for sin. 

Sometime read the Book of Revelation and check it out.  I believe that our suffering is symbolized in that book.  Don’t tell me when I am feeling my pain that I am not in my tribulation!  You cannot tell people around the world who are starving to death and whose babies are being beaten to death in front of them that the tribulation is not here yet but is coming some day in the future.

The point, however, is that when the lousy things hit us, we come to the Golden Altar and worship the Lamb; our incense of praise and the blood of Jesus take us into worship and into the Holy of Holies. There we find everything we need!

 

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