There
are only three rules about real estate – location, location, location. You may
have two houses exactly alike and yet they may have radically different values
based entirely on the neighborhood that surrounds them. In other words, how we
view something is often determined not just by what it instrinsically is but
also by what is often found around it.
In a sense worship is this way. When
we examine it in the context of its surroundings in the Word of God we often
find things that inform how we view worship itself. While these things are not
necessarily worship in the strictest sense of the word they do help us to
understand worship because they are often seen in its company. They are part
and parcel of worship. They are the package that often surrounds it.
In today's blog post I am going to
discuss three of these and I will follow that up with another three next week.
The first of
these is serving. The original language words so often translated as
some form of the word 'servant' in the King James Bible (253 times) is also
translated nine times as 'worship' or 'worshipper.' In fact, in one particular
usage in the New Testament the English word 'worshipper' actually comes from a
word that means 'one who sweeps and cleans the temple.'
There is a direct connection between
your sense of worship and whom or what you choose to serve. In practical terms
that means if you claim to worship Jehovah and yet you do not serve Him I
highly doubt whether you actually do worship Him. By the same token, if you serve
yourself or money or any one of a number of false idols often found in current
American life it cannot be reconciled with a claim to worship God.
Jeremiah believed in this deep
connection between worship and service. Then
they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their
God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.
(Jeremiah 22.9) In the same generation Daniel's three friends saw the same
thing. But if not, be it known unto thee,
O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor
worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3.18) Five
centuries later Paul grasped the same truth. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. (Romans 1.25) Jesus
Himself, quoting no less an authority than Moses, established this emphatically
as truth when He said to Satan, Get thee
hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4.10)
I am writing this on Easter Sunday afternoon.
All across America this morning millions of people gathered in churches to
worship God, at least as they see it. Yet a large number of those people made
no effort in the last week to serve Him. They gave no cup of cold water in His
name to one that was thirsty. They fed no hungry man in His name. They clothed
no naked person in His name. They completely ignored the spiritual, physical,
emotional, and financial needs of their neighbors. For one hundred sixty seven
hours this week they pursued a selfish course yet because they sat in a worship
service and sang worship choruses this morning they think they worship God.
They could not possibly be more mistaken. If you worship you serve.
The second
connection point we often find with worship is praise. Last week I
defined worship as our response when we see God. As I enter His presence I am
deeply convinced of my own unworthiness and His transcendent supremacy. I place
Him in my heart and mind into the proper sphere He ought to hold and I place
myself appropriately as well. Consequently, I bow before Him. I worship Him.
Such a view of God almost inevitably
leads me to praise Him. The sweet psalmist of Israel, who full well knew
worship and praise both, saw this connection. All nations whom thou hast made shall come
and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name. (Psalm
86.9) Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at his
footstool; for he is holy. (Psalm 99.5) I
will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy
lovingkindness and for thy truth. (Psalm 138.2)
Overall I take a rather dim view of
contemporary Christian America's praise and worship music but I have the
greatest respect for the sincerity of the motives behind it. Praise and worship
do go hand in hand and ought to go hand in hand in the life of God's people. They bowed
themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped,
and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for
ever. (II Chronicles 7.3) The one thing that such churches and such people
get right more than any other is a deep desire to praise the God we all worship. I
love them for it.
The third
connection point Scripture implicitly and explicitly pairs with worship is
humility. We saw last week that humility is central to the whole idea of
what worship is. This is borne out repeatedly in Scripture. I will not bore you
with a long list of quotations. I will allow myself just one. O come, let us
worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. (Psalm
95.6)
Humility is necessary for the proper
exercise of every spiritual grace but none more so than worship. If I am to bow
in my heart it must be because I see myself as completely unworthy of Him.
Pride is anathema to all that God would build in us. At the same time it is
mother's milk to all that is wrong and wicked in this world. The older I get
the more shocked I am to find famous preachers and ministries that seem to
embrace pride so thoughtlessly. Do they not understand? Can they not see? If
they really are as close to God as they represent themselves to be the result
would be the opposite of great pride – it would be a profound humility.
Yet it is exactly here that I must
pause. I must pull back my indignantly outthrust arm and retract my accusatory
finger. I must cease peering around the corners of the beam in my own eye. I
must drag the clandestine cavities of my own heart into the full orbed light of
God's day and see the filth contained therein. While I want to throw everyone
else at God's feet in my self-righteous judgment I must instead throw myself
there. I must humble myself under the mighty hand of God and let Him worry
about humbling everyone else.
Worship is not service but if it does
not include service it is not worship. Worship is not praise but it will
naturally produce praise. Worship is not humility alone but without humility
worship cannot exist. Humility is the air in which worship breathes.
Beloved, do you serve Him this week.
Do you praise Him this week. Do you humble yourself before Him. In these ways,
then, let us worship the Lord our God.
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