Anthony Delgado has a wonderful wife and three children. Anthony directs Youth Ministry at I don’t want anyone to be intimidated by the word theology. Theology is simply the study of God or the pursuit for knowledge of God. As we will find as we go forward, worship is actually theology in practice.
I want to give you a picture to help you to understand worship. Imagine that you are a journalist for the school newspaper. The football team has made the playoffs so you have been given the assignment of writing an expose about the key players on the team. There is a problem, though. You could care less about football and know little about it. You don’t even know any of the players. So what do you do?
You research and ask people questions until you get the answers you need. You interview players to find out how to play the game and what makes them so good at it. The more you do this, you grow in your understanding of the game and of the players.
Let’s look at the flip side. Rather than do the hard work, you could simply refuse the assignment. “Give it to someone who knows more about football” or “It’s just not for me” you might say.
Worship is in many ways the same. Before getting into the analogy more, let’s discuss what worship is. We need to understand the purpose and role of worship. There is “nothing more basic and essential to life than worship. It is the means by which we affirm the reality and sovereignty of God, confess our finitude and dependance upon Him, and celebrate the dignity and worth He bestows on all His people” (The Covenant Book of Worship, 1981). This is all to say that the Christian life is hinged on worship. All acts of worship are an expression of God’s infinite power and authority over us and our frail existence, which causes us to be completely reliant upon Him. In a way, worship is a human expression of God’s power and authority.
Do you feel like people are distracted from worship these days? The very things that should prove God’s power distract us from it—science, technology, etc. We have become idolaters of fact without even realizing it, and this distracts us from true biblical worship.
Let’s go to the analogy for a moment. Let’s say that you are shy so you don’t want to do the interviews. Instead you look up football on the internet and write a lot of great stuff about the game and what makes the players good at it, but you never asked them or the coach or even the water boy. I bet it all looks good on paper, but it’s not really a testimony of the team. It’s fake.
In our walk with Jesus we can do the same thing. We refuse to allow God to be the focus of our lives. Science just makes too much sense for me to really believe that God did it all. Instead, we look at other Christians, so we can make sure we are looking good, but we really are not making the effort that it takes to truly find out who God is.
True biblical worship is this: “Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Psalms 29.2, NKJV). I want you to think for a moment about who God really is. If He created all things and is here working to see the completion of His plan and if He loves us so much that Jesus would give His own life for us then, doesn’t God deserve glory? If so, then isn’t this verse a commanded to give it to Him? We are to worship Him. This is the only acceptable solution to this dilemma of fact idolatry. We must bow before the living God in true worship and acknowledge Him in all things. We must make our lives to be a celebration of what He has done; in creation, at the cross and in our individual lives, as well as what He will do in the end of times and in eternity.
CONVERSATION
Worship is our part in a conversation with God. In a conversation one person talks, then another responds, and then the first responds and so on and so forth, and the conversation progresses. If you want to write a good article about the football team, you are going to have to talk to people, ask questions and listen for answers. We respond to God when He speaks, and likewise, He responds to us when we speak. Say your aunt get’s sick. You respond by praying and God responds to the prayer. It also works the other way. Often God will speak to you first, maybe through His word or through a challenging sermon. You then respond to God through change and then He responds back again with the fruits of the Spirit or in some other way.
LIFE RESPONSE
“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” (Romans 12.1). A spiritual life is attained through offering ourselves up to God as a response to His sacrifice for us. It is worship—our side of the conversation with God, that we do what He says; giving up our selfish desires so that we can acknowledge our creator and provider. Worship is a life response to God. I think of the journalist again. Let’s say you, the journalist, compiled all the info about the team and learned all about football and then you simply don’t write the article. Have you brought any glory to the team? Of course not. In the same way, we have to respond with to God in worship in order to bring Him the glory.
CELEBRATION
Worship is celebrating what God has done for you. “Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come” (Exodus 12.17). The Israelites were commanded to celebrate as a response to the deliverance which God brought to them. Worship is celebrating over the blessings of God, bringing praise to Him for all that He has done. Hasn’t God delivered you from an eternity in hell? Isn’t that worth celebrating?
COMMUNION
Worship is communal. This passage is about the early church.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved (Acts 2.42-47, NIV).
The early church worshiped with their very lives. They devoted themselves to what the apostles told them about God. They devoted themselves to fellow believers. They devoted themselves to prayer. They gave up worldly possessions in order to give to those in need. Every day they met in the most public place there was, the temple courts—the mall, the park, the quad at school—so that others would see and hear them worship as they witnessed of what God had done for them. They had fellowship with one another with glad and sincere hearts—worshiping in spirit and in truth—and they praised God for all He had done for them. They responded to God for His blessing and then He responded to them by adding daily to those who were being saved. Worship is responding to God for what He has done, is doing and will do.
We have a choice here. We can be the journalist that rejected the assignment. We can outright refuse to glorify God and acknowledge that there really is glory due His name.
Or we can idolize facts. We can create a fake version of the story about the players in hopes that no one will ever know the difference. We can pretend to be Christians while we are at home and church.
Or we can do the work that we have been called to. We can interview the players so we can truly learn who they are and give them the glory that they are due. We can spend time to find out who God is, what He has done, what He has promised to do, so that we can truly give Him the glory due his name.
We must bow before the living God in true worship and acknowledge Him in all things. We must make our lives to be a celebration of what He has done; in creation, at the cross and in our individual lives, as well as what He will do in the end of times and in eternity.
DISCUSSION
- According to Romans 12.1, why should we worship God (mercy)?
- How do we worship God (living sacrifice)?
- How are you distracted from worship?
- How have you responded to God?
- How has God responded to you?
- What evidence is there of worship in your life?
- How do you celebrate what God has done for you?
- How do you worship with others?
(Don’t forget to download the Worship Lesson 1 Worksheet)