Worship

It is interesting that the Bible does not define the word “worship,” so we must derive our understanding of it from how it is used in the Bible. There are two primary words, one Hebrew (shachah) and the other Greek (proskuneo) that are the primary words for “worship” in the Bible. The Hebrew word means “to bow down” and the Greek, to “kiss,” as in kissing the ground when bowing to someone or something. It is obvious from these definitions that these words refer to bowing down to someone who is worthy of it or commands it whether worthy or not. There are other Greek words that are based on the idea of awe, recognizing that someone is awesome, of such greatness that he causes fear and trembling, as Moses says in Dt. 9.19, quoted in Heb. 12.21. That could be a very great and mighty person and certainly God or a god. This could have to do with bowing down – awe might readily strike one to the ground before the awesome. One other Greek word has to do with service. When these words are taken up in the Bible they refer to our response to God, recognizing his greatness and awesomeness and falling down before him, literally or in our hearts.

In the Bible, of course, it is not just being awestruck and bowing down, but doing so readily and gladly because we recognize his worthiness of such. Indeed, the English word “worship” is based on the words “worth” and “worthiness.” We recognize that God is worthy of being worshiped in the sense of praise and adoration, and because he is divine. God is worthy of worship simply because he is divine, but even an unworthy being may ask for or demand worship, such as Satan in Mt. 4.9. One of our great blessings is that God is worthy of our worship because of his great grace and goodness to us. We want to worship him and do so willingly, and we want to serve him as a result.

With those introductory thoughts, let us turn to what I really want to say in this article.

Over the past year and a half or so the Lord has been speaking to our church about the matter of worship. The beginning point was Gen. 22.5. It was dear brother Eric Luck who told me that this verse is the first one in the Bible that uses the word “worship.” It is a generally accepted principle of biblical interpretation that the first use of a word in the Bible governs its use throughout the Bible. And what do we have in Gen. 22.5?

The context is the testing of Abraham by God in the matter of sacrificing Isaac, his only and beloved son (v. 2). When Abraham and his party arrived at the place of sacrifice, he told his men to stay with the donkey while he and Isaac went to worship. They went to worship. How? Abraham was about to sacrifice his dearest possession to God. We learn from this story that the fundamental truth of worship is sacrifice. True worship is the giving up of all to God.

The book of Leviticus sets forth the Jewish system of worship. It is a sacrificial system. Sacrifice was the very heart of Jewish worship.

As we thought about this truth we came to see that our purpose in coming together at our worship service was not to get something out of it, but to give something to God. How many times have we heard someone say that he didn’t get anything out of the service? Well what did he put into it? Sometimes we go to a church service and just sit there waiting for God to dump a blessing into our laps, and we are disappointed when it doesn’t come. My father used to say that that is like someone expecting the bank to pay him interest when he has not made a deposit! The bank doesn’t pay interest on zero, and even if it paid 100%, 100% of zero is still zero! It doesn’t work that way. You have to put something in.

In the same way, when we gather for worship our goal should not be to get something out of the service, but to be a satisfaction to God. Our goal is that when the meeting is over God will have been blessed and will be satisfied. After all, are we worshiping him or ourselves? And the noteworthy truth is that when we apply ourselves to satisfying him, he blesses us far more than we could ever bless him. I think I can honestly say that to me our worship times have been deeper and more intense and more wonderful since we began seeing it in this way. On a recent Sunday we were virtually awestruck by the presence of God as we worshipped him, or at least I was.

The best example I know of God responding in this way took place in 1982 just after I met the Lord. I think I was saved (I am not sure just when), but God had never been a personal reality to me. He was the dominant idea of my being and I was always, always aware of him in that way, but there was no personal relationship. This troubled me for many years, and that, combined with some very hard experiences I went through, led to a period of about seven years when I did not know whether God even existed or not, and if he did I didn’t know what I thought about him! Why would he treat a person who so wanted to know him the way he was treating me?

I won’t go into why. That is another story and it has its answer, but on Aug. 1, 1982, a Sunday, when I had not been attending any church meetings, except occasionally, for seven years, as I sat at home reading a Christian book, making yet another stab at finding God, if he was there, I had an experience which I cannot describe or explain, but I knew I had met God. It changed my life. I have known him from that day. He saved my life. I do not believe I could have gone on indefinitely in the misery that my life was.

The next month the Jewish festival of Tabernacles took place. It occurred to me that we ought to celebrate the festival in a Christian way. We decided to have a conference on Tabernacles with speakers to teach about it and to show the Christian meaning. We had about fifty people to gather at an assembly ground and had worship and teaching on Friday night and Saturday morning and night. On Sunday morning we gathered for worship and the Lord’s Table. In the letter we had sent out inviting people to the meeting we had noted the Lord’s instruction in Ex. 23.15 that no one was to appear before the Lord empty-handed, and we asked people to bring a gift for the Lord. We did not mean money necessarily, though that could be a gift. It wasn’t about money.

After the worship time on Sunday morning we asked the people to come up one by one and give their gifts. Virtually everyone there brought a gift. One man carried his new grandbaby and gave him (or her?) to the Lord. Some called for a song of worship. One person did give some money to some Christian cause. I remember that my gift was faith. I had been without faith for so long that it seemed appropriate to give the Lord faith, to believe and trust. On and on it went.

We started sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 I think. After about 30 minutes, I would have said, the kitchen help came and told us to come for lunch, that they were about to close the dining hall. It was one o’clock! We had been giving to the Lord for three hours! His response was such that time meant nothing. His response was his presence. To me it was so intense that I could almost have touched the Lord physically. My wife-to-be was holding my hand and rubbed a hole in my palm! I have never experienced anything like it before or since, though I have known many wonderful experiences of his presence since then. And it was all in response to our giving to God rather than trying to get something from God.

A well-known verse in the Bible is Rom. 12.1: “I urge you therefore, brothers, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing, to God, which is your logical worship.” (The Greek word is logikos, logical.) Remember that we started with saying that worship involves sacrifice. The Jewish sacrificial system had five different kinds of sacrifice. One was the whole burnt offering, the only offering in which the entire animal was burned before God. The symbolism was that all is given to God. The Lord Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of this type in that he did give all, including his intimacy with the Father and his life. Now Paul tells us that we, too, are to be living sacrifices, not killed and burned (though some are called to martyrdom), but being a burning bush, burning but not consumed, giving all to God.

And he says that this is worship. It is our logical worship. It is logical, not to human reason, to the darkened mind, but to one who knows that what the Bible says is true, it is only logical that you would worship God in this way. Why would you trade an eternity of blessing for 70 years of trying to get the things of this world? It seems much more logical to me to give up the seventy years for the eternity!

One fact about being a living sacrifice is that it isn’t a living sacrifice just for a couple of hours on Sunday, but all the time. That is, our desire to be a satisfaction to God is not just a little from time to time. It is continuous. I was curious about the difference between continual and continuous. I learned that continual means “repeatedly, from time to time,” and continuous means “without stopping.” We are to be continuous living sacrifices to the Lord, desiring without interruption the satisfaction of his heart. It is 24/7. And remember, it is worship we are talking about. Worship is not just for a set time, but continuous.

As stated above, we have been experiencing some of this blessing of giving to God in our worship times. It is wonderful to come together with a heart to give to God and to have him respond with the unmatched blessing of himself. But it has to be genuine. You can’t just say the words and expect the blessing. That is magic. And don’t you think God knows if we are playing games? But as you come to love him more and more, you want to give to him more and more, and as you do, he gives himself, the greatest blessing anyone could ever have. If our times of corporate worship are thus blessed, imagine the blessing we would also know individually if we were continuous living sacrifices, continuous worshippers. Give him your all. Worship him from your heart. It is only logical.

Copyright © 2011 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also, you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.