The first issue that I would like to address in 'The Deadliest Weapon Series' (see introduction to The Deadliest Weapon for context) is the average American Christian's view on worship. We have allowed ourselves to be terribly deceived on this topic. For whatever reason, the word 'worship' is nearly always used to mean praise music. Why is this? Quite honestly, the Scriptures scarcely (if ever) use the word 'worship' in the context of music. Music is frequently used in the context of such topics as: praise, adoration, motivation for (or triumph after) battles, joy, delight, thanksgiving, and many others. Worship can often include some of these topics (though probably not the topic of battles, since all war is a ramification of, or response to, the fall), but the point here is that worship is so much more than just these.
Worship, as described in the Bible, always involves and requires a pure heart, communion with Christ and His followers, humility, service, and most importantly, sacrifice!
The reason I say this is not to point out that worship and music can not be related. Rather, what I am saying is that they are not synonymous, and that worship should involve so much more than just singing or playing instruments. Dr. Lee Campbell speaks clearly and powerfully on this issue:
"This [worship] is a much richer concept than mere corporate singing and praise once each week for 20 minutes - an event that could occur without any actual worship going on at all." (http://www.xenos.org/essays/worship.htm)
In addition, my intentions in this article are not just to abolish the misconceptions of worship in its most common use of the word, but to establish what worship is and to promote what God's Word has to say about worship.
In order to worship God, we must properly understand the purpose and definition of worship. The purpose of worship is the same purpose for all of life -- namely, to recongize the one true God's existence, to give Him glory and credit for every last aspect of nature (and everything else) that has been given to us, and to give back all that we possibly can to God with a pure and reverent heart. Again, this means having communion with Christ and His followers and humility. It also requires devotion and a committed, growing, healthy relationship with (and view of) God.
I think the essential problem with today's mode of worhsip is that we settle for giving hardly any effort to God, other than the effort of standing up from our chairs or pews to sing a few songs that someone else wrote for us, and we shamefully call it worship. Again, there is nothing wrong with music, and it can definitely be a great way to express our adoration for God, as well as a method of giving God glory and credit. However, perhaps a more appropriate name for it would be praise music; not worship.
So, what are some examples of worship, you ask? Well, God graciously gave us a great list of them through his commandments. Here are a few that come to mind:
>Evangelism (mark 16:15 and Acts 1:8)-- an act that includes great sacrifice, dedication, and the proclamation of God's glory. It can even involve sacrifice to the extent of losing all pride, earthly riches, selfish desires (like pursuing a career of choice), or even one's life! Of course this would require having communion with Christ and humility before Him, because only Christ can accomplish this work.
>Discipleship (Matthew 28:18-20) -- this includes giving up the much desired time for other pursuits, in order to train someone in the truths that God teaches and in the disciplines that God requires of us. Would this not count as worship?
>Church fellowship/involvement -- this requires sacrifice by humbling ourselves enough to confess our sins regularly and by building each other up through God's Word. Would this not bring glory to God's name as we bear testimony of the the Holy Spirit's work of unifying the body? Wouldn't it also bear testimony of Christ's promises of love, the establishment of justice, and more? Which brings me to my last example...
>Living a Christlike life (John 1:7) -- if bearing the testimony and reputation of God Himself in a world so filled with skepticism of His very existence is not a form of worship, then I don't know what is. Would this not require a growing relationship with Him, dedication, and the greatest sacrifice of all?
These are only a few of the obvious, fundamental forms of worship. I'm sure you all could think of more by simply taking to time to ask God how you can use the spiritual, mental, and physical gifts that He has already given you to give back to Him.
I don't wish to make this article any longer, except to ask for you to consider these things carefully and to respond with any comments or questions that you have.
12 comments:
Nice! Worship isn't an event and the church isn't a place!
I bear testimony to the truths herein: This manuscript sits well with me.
Also, added a link in my post to yours, since they're upon the same topic but from different perspectives.
Also, watch out for ZooMama.
You talked about the means of worship, but what would you say the goal of worship is?
Wes, in response to your comment, I guess I could have been more clear about that. Essentially, I would categorize the goal as being the same as our purpose (as stated in the article) - to humbly and sacrificially give, in order to proclaim God's name to all those around us. Does that answer your question?
Thanks so much for this Kurtis!
You have a gift for writing easy-to-read, yet deeply profound and inspiring works. Cheers!
I totally agree with what you're saying. I had been feeling so empty while I was leading worship for the past months, I realized something was missing; I needed to try my very hardest to meditate on God and the amazing truths of His person while playing my guitar. (Talk about multi-tasking). God will bless those who love Him with all there hearts, souls and minds.
Music is not merely a physical event of vibrating particles in the air, but also something that reaches into the soul. It's still a big mystery to me. I agree "Worship" must be taken more seriously. We need to be falling on our knees and dancing for joy. (African Christians put our Worship to shame) If we truly, deep down inside, believe that Christ is our savior, why isn't more being done in His name? Why aren't we brought to tears every single time we Worship?
You're points on sacrifice were deeply moving, as well. I've had to lay down so many of my selfish plans to embrace the call of our Savior. It was so hard at first but there is nothing more satisfying then living within God's will... I pray that all our brothers and sisters will see this.
Nearly half the world has never heard of Christ... there's so much to do! But why aren't His Hands and Feet moving?
I heard a quote from a well-known Atheist (for the life of me, I couldn't find it online), but it went something like this; "If Christians truly believe that Jesus was God, and that He provided the one and only way to salvation- the only way to escape Hell, why aren't they trying to tell everyone they can about this?" this Atheist was spot-on.
Again, thanks for writing this bro,
Take care,
Trev
Yeah, I'd probably say that the purpose of it is to exalt God by enjoying him (I think Piper or someone said something like that, and I agree)- since it can be private I'd say it's the response to our ackowledgement of God's goodness in regard to our position to him- that it's almost impossible to worship when you're proud, so you're right about humility, and that it's an affectionate delight in God's goodness and reckognizes that everything good we have comes from him; it's the act of taking our eyes off ourselves and onto God.. I think that's part of it at least..
Wes, I think I would agree on your comment to some extent. I guess I would need to discuss further implications of this, though.
I think that enjoying Him is not really the center of worship, because, as we see in the case of Abraham with Isaac and many other cases, worship may involve highly self-sacrificing acts that could hardly be described as enjoyable. I think, rather, it is having a heart of wanting God to enjoy us by being a presentable sacrifice/offering to Him -- a sweet aroma to Him. I'm sure that Abraham's heart was in the right place during this act, because it is refrenced later that this faith-produced action resulted in his justification (Galations 3:6: "...just as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness"). I'm just not sure entirely on what you mean by enjoying Him being the purpose of worship.
Again, I think it should be a fruit of worship, just as Abraham was probably later able to look on that situation with joy, thinking of the Lord's provision, but I don't think His methods were that of enjoyment so much as obedience.
Wes, it also occured to me that the following statements are true:
1.)If one enjoys God (or has a loving relationship with Him), one will worship Him.
Consequently,
2.) if one worships/loves God, one will enjoy Him (based on God's promises to bless those who obey Him).
Since you have studied logic, and I have not, perhaps you could best analyze how these statements could remain true in the context of what we have talked about.
Any thoughts?
um, as far as logic the only concern I have is that in the second statement you're just proving the premise in the first statement- because the first statement already assumes you're enjoying God and the conclusion to the second statement is that you'll enjoy God; it's easy to see when you put it into letters: so let 'E' represent one enjoying God, 'W' represent one worshipping God- you could say:
1)If E then W
2)If W then E
3)Therefore, if E then E
originally you said (and let O mean obedience to God, and B mean blessing from God,)
1)If E then W
2)If O then B (this premise was in parenthesis)
3)Therefore If W then E
the missing links are:
1)If W then O (if you're worshipping then you're obeying)
2)If B then E (that if you're blessed then you are enjoying God)
so the "correct" structure would be:
1)If E then W
2)If W then O
3)If O then B
4)If B then E
5)Therefore, if W then E (lines 2-3; but W comes from E in #1, but E comes from W in in the conclusion... so I'm not sure that it works because the joy produces the obedience, but the obedience is said to be what produces the joy)
anyway, the thought process I was going through is that God doesn't need our service since he can do whatever he wants, and the Pharisees sacrificed and served intensely yet their hearts were far from God (and can you worship without your heart?), so it seems that what God wants is our affectionate praise of his goodness- he created us to glorify himself by showing his goodness and love to sinners, and so it seems that worship is a function of the heart and not so much just actions.. but you may be right, it may not just be the affections of joy, it could be adoration, beauty, trust (which could be where service comes in), faithfulness, love, etc.
The dictionary defines it as reverence toward a divine being, and sacrifice could be a part of that if it was the function of a reverent heart, and perhaps what seems to be a reverent heart really isn't if it isn't doing service.. because maybe the function of a reverent heart is to sacrifice and serve. I think it's both.. as far as our discussion, the only thing I'm not sure of is the text concerning Abraham. You're point was in reference to that verse, but I wonder if Abraham just said that to the people so they wouldn't know he was sacrificing his son.. kind of like the ladies looking out for baby Moses that the women give birth too quick.. when really they didn't, they said that because they feared the Lord. So I'm not sure if Moses actually thought it was worship or if that was just his story to the people he was talking to. But if he did mean it that way then it could still be an act of reverence by putting God's word above his feelings...
Worship on brotha!
Thank you for clarifying, Wes. I totally understand the logical progression that you used. I think that might have been more of getting at. And, I guess I hadn't considered that perspective of the Abraham story. That may very well be.
I think I failed to clearly express a lot of things in this article, because I just assumed the whole aspect of having one's heart in the right place when they worship. What I was intending to say with the idea of service and sacrifice is that it takes a reverent heart to offer true service and sacrifice. I think these words have been taken very lightly today and in ancient times. True service and sacrifice is more like the widow's mite, rather than the pharisees' example. It is when one has a heart of being willing to give up anything for another -- not just sparing a spotless sheep or goat when you have thousands of them.
I think, ultimately, what I was trying to get at with this article was that we have taken worship far too lightly. The definition that you looked up seems pretty close to adequate, though. I think what is often times missing in current forms of American Christian worship is simply reverence. I'm not sure if we're genuinely fearing God when we only sing about Him as though He is a buddy, or, at best, a helper or a really amazing person.
Thank you so much for your insight on this discussion. This is what I was hoping to acheive with my blog, but instead I usually just get really vague comments that don't show a lot of evidence of thought provocation.
I think I might actually consider rewriting this article, altogether.
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