The Heart of Worship - Part 1

Keeping with the theme ... more on worship.

People complain about church for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it is “We’ve never done it this way before.” Often it is “I don’t like it that way.” Since opinions and preferences have no bearing on the question, I will try to write this as informed by Scripture alone.

What Is Worship?

The New Testament word used most often, proskuneo, is a Greek compound word that means literally “to kiss the hand of the Master”. The Old Testament word, shachah, is a Hebrew word meaning “to bow down”. Both carry with them the idea of paying homage, acknowledging oneself to be the servant of a master. In English, the word is rather descriptive. It is rooted in the idea of “worth”, applying “worth-ship” to God.

What is worship? It is our assigning to God the value that He deserves. It is our bended knee, our recognition of His absolute Lordship. This recognition takes many forms. First and foremost, it takes the form of obedience. This makes absolute sense since it is an acknowledgment of His Lordship. Thus, we see that we are to “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service of worship” (Rom. 12:1). Paul refers to the “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26), the obedience produced when we believe that God is who He says He is. Jesus informed us that true worship is “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). True worship, then, is reflected in a life that is on its knees before its Master. This is the life reflected in Paul’s words:

I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Phil. 3:8-11).

There it is; “the surpassing value of knowing Christ”. That is true worship – worth-ship. Worship elevates God and lowers all other things to their relative value (“rubbish”) including self-gained righteousness, comfort, well being, even life itself. Worship places “knowing Christ” of ultimate worth.

Thus, our narrow idea that worship is contained in the songs we sing on Sunday morning is extremely anemic. As Samuel told Saul, “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22). Of course that music we offer on Sunday mornings is, indeed worship, but it is clearly insufficient when it comes to recognizing God’s true worth.