Studies in Christian Worship
by David Tucker


Study 1 WHAT IS WORSHIP?

At the top of the agenda in many of our churches today is the subject of "Worship". For many it is sadly an arena of strife, of contention and of confusion. It can be an area of selfishness where there are those who want their own way, equally there are those situations where the worship of God is dead. There is no longer any life. Instead lifeless rituals performed through week by week which cannot lift the heart anywhere, let alone to the Almighty in praise.

And yet worship is a marvellous gift of God by which we approach Him, and bow down before Him and adore Him.

Archbishop William Temple defined it: "Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of the conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of the mind with His truth; the purifying of the imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of the will to His purpose – and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centredness which is original sin and the source of actual sin." It is true to say, as another writer has it, "After all when everything else ceases, worship will remain."


There are three words which may help us:-
  • PROSKUNEO It is the Greek word for worship and the most common in our New Testament. For example the word is used ten times in John 4, the chapter with the well-known words of our Lord, "God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (verse 24). It means to stoop down to kiss reverently, as a subject may bow and kiss a monarch. Early Greek writers used it to speak of stooping to kiss the ground as a sign of thanksgiving for a safe journey. The ideas of reverence and awe, of stooping and thanksgiving, are all bound up in this word. In the New Testament such worship is reserved for the Lord.

  • LATREIA This Greek word doesn't appear many times in the New Testament, but an example is found in Philippians 3:3. The essential meaning is of service, and originally meant the labour, the service of slaves or hired servants. Years ago people said, 'I'm in service'. We know what they meant. They were in service to a master. For us the word means the worship that is the love of the heart towards a heavenly Father expressed in terms of service for the King. We're all 'in service' for the Lord.

  • WEORTHSCIPE This is the old Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'worthship', which means ascribing worthship to God. 'Thou art worthy…' --- and He is!

Building upon the above we can suggest that worship is:-


1. THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving should be a central part of our worship - thanksgiving to God for all that He is, and all that He has given to us. All that we have and are has come from Him. Look up Acts 17:24-28. And what should our response be? Worship, praise, adoration and thanksgiving. See what the Psalmists have to say in Psalms 7:17; 28:7; 30:10-12; 35:18; 118:1,19,21,28,29. In our worship do we give thanks to the living God for who He is, what He has done and what He is doing?


2. SUBMISSION

True worship is submission to the Lord God Almighty. It is abandoning ourselves to God, and he who abandons himself to God will never be abandoned by God. To submit, to abandon myself to Him, means that I want to follow Him and His will for my life. 'To worship the King all glorious above' is to bow in humble submission. One writer puts it, 'We get no deeper into Christ, than we allow Him to get into us'. True worship is when we submit to Him, hand our all over to Him, bow down before Him, and as we get deeper into Him our worship is more real and meaningful. Look up James 4:7,8.


3. LISTENING

As we submit to Him, and wait upon Him, He speaks. A vital ingredient of worship is listening! One writer has it, "Worship is in part listening. Listening to what God might say to us, through music, through words, through fellowship." In the words of a prayer, in the line of a hymn or chorus, something from the Scripture reading or in the ministry of the Word. And we realise that God has spoken to us. Are we listening for Him? Part of our worship is to do that. The hymnwriter has it:

'Speak, Lord, in the stillness,
While we wait on Thee;
Hushed my heart to listen
In expectancy.'

Look up l Samuel 3:9,10; Deuteronomy 30:20; Ecclesiastes 5:1; Mark 9:7; John 10:27. At the heart of worship is a heart relationship with the Father, through the Son and by the Holy Spirit..
Bear the following points in mind:-
  • God made me in order to praise Him. Look up Psalm 95:6; 102:18; Isaiah 43:21; 1 Peter 2:9.
  • Worship will declare that I have been made for his pleasure. It will cleanse me from my self-centred thinking. Ephesians 1:5,6.
  • Before I go to a service of worship, I must fix my mind and heart on the fact that worship is for the blessing of God before the blessing of the worshipper.