Faces of Worship

 

What is worship? What does it mean to worship? What does worship look like? How does a worshipper behave? Of all the questions we ask about worship, perhaps the only  answer that makes sense to us across the board is who we worship. We might give various answers to the former questions; but of the latter we would surely answer: “Well, God of course.”  As Christ followers we base our hearts and minds upon the living word of God (Hebrews 4:12); so then what does the Bible say about all those questions?

 

Well, quite a bit actually. And the purpose of this series of writings, entitled “Faces of Worship,” is to shed bibline light on the many questions we ask of and think about worship. It is our prayer that these works will in some way point us to issues that we can talk and think about in a practical way – that we might begin to construct a portrait in our hearts and minds of what the many faces of worship look like in our everyday lives. So, let’s dig in and unearth some heavenly treasures – that we might truly learn to live and walk and breathe as worshippers – in sprit and in truth! (John 4:24)

 

We also hope that you will feed upon the scriptures that are brought forth from these works; that you will look them up, search them, read around them, pray over them – and ask God just what they might mean to you right where you’re at in your journey.

 

 

Worship – The Face of Obedience

 

Most of us have various reactions to the word ‘obedience’. It can conjure up foreboding images of duty and legalism and works – scary stuff no doubt. But if we take a closer look, we find that God’s intent for us is to push through these things en route to discovering His remarkable images of love.  We look at the face of obedience first, because it is in this context we first meet the word ‘Worship’ in the Bible.

 

We all remember the story in Genesis 22 where Abraham is preparing to follow God’s instruction to have him sacrifice his only son. We know the end of the story – we’ve seen the end of the movie, and our tension is stayed by the fact that we know God won’t put Abraham through the ultimate sacrifice; yet echoes of reverent fear return when we realize that when it came to His own son, God would go through with it and then some. He’s already done so much more than He would ask us to. Wow.

 

When we back into the story we find the first use of the word ‘Worship’ in the Bible. On the morning of the would be offering of Isaac, Abraham tells his other men to stay behind, and “we will worship and return to you” (Gen 22:5). Now all the guys in the ivory towers of academia will talk about the “Principle of First Mention” and use terms like “Expositional Constancy” – and there are certainly tremendous merits to those notions. But all we really have to realize is when God saw by His Holy spirit to first use the word ‘Worship’ in scripture, he wrapped it around an almost unspeakable act of obedience. The winsome wedding of worship and obedience would never be broken.

 

The whole scene in Genesis 22 helps us to make a lot more sense of the Apostle Paul when he says “Christ was obedient to death, even to the cross.” (Phi 2:8)  Christ’s last act at the cross was really His ultimate expression of worship to the Father, who loved us so radically that He let His own Son go through with it – so we wouldn’t have to, as Abraham and Isaac didn’t have to. We hear a lot a fanciful explanations as to what it means to “take up our crosses and follow Him” (Luke 9:23). But when we look at God’s Word, we can see that it simply means to lay down our own will in favor of taking up His. We remember what Christ said at Gethsemane, which is where He really picked up His cross: “Father, let this cup pass from me, yet thy will be done.” (Luke 22:42)

 

What does this mean in the everydayness of things? Well, we take a peek into the Psalms and find insight from David when he asks the Lord to “help me know the extent of my days” (Psa. 39:4 underline mine). David is not speaking of years or months or even of weeks. He is letting us know that as Christians we should be thinking in days. This is the message God was hammering home to the Israelites by causing the manna he provided in the dessert to expire daily. Glancing through a few titles in any Christian bookstore is enough to find that we are obsessed with the question of what God’s will is for our future, when all He desires is for us to know that we are His beloved and that his heart is simply ravished by our obedience today.

 

There are so many little opportunities in each day to take up God’s will over our own, that it can actually be fun to have the chance to ravish the very heart of God each and every day! Right now, right here. David got a hold of this in Psalm 40:8 when he declared “I delight to do your will O my God.” Luke tells us in his gospel that God really does care about the little things (Luke 16:10) – we don’t have to climb a mountain to ravish God’s heart. Now that’s just cool. That helps us take the turn from duty and works and legalism and straight into the very living breathing heart of our Creator. If after a moment’s reflection that doesn’t give you a serious case of the happies, I should think we’d do well to check your pulse.

 

Finally, consider the words of Christ in John 14 when he said “If you love me you will obey me.” Just incase we didn’t get it, he said that three times in the same chapter. Go and ravish His heart – Bless HIM this very day! In the Face of Obedience you will find your blessing.

 

John Koller

November 8, 2007