What does worship mean to you? When a Christian hears the word worship or asked what does the word worship mean, there are a number of beliefs or camps (if you will) as to what is contained in worship. Some believe worship is the usage or implementation of music. Whether through audible words, humming, or the playing a single instrument or the orchestra of instruments playing a melody, worship is often associated to music. Some believe that worship is adoration given to God. Again, a method used is music to whatever degree but it involves prostration, it involves surrender, it involves our part to honor God through word or often by action.
Nearly 27 years ago the late pastor Wayman Mitchell preached a sermon during a San Antonio Bible conference titled True Worship with his text from John 4. I have mentioned both this sermon and this text numerous times in writings as well as in conversation, but I wish to just lift one specific portion of verses from that chapter (verses 20-24, emphasis added) that begins with the ending of a conversation the Samaritan woman has with Jesus and then Jesus helps educate her about worship, “’Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.’” What is Jesus talking about? Was He talking about church attendance? Was He talking about music? Is worship the lack of musical instruments on a platform with just singing or that only limited instruments can be used but not the electric guitar? Is worship smoke, lights, and theatrics on a stage? Is worship emotion or an emotional response? Is worship a song played at a certain speed? Was He talking about bringing our Bibles or the Torah? Was He talking about the observance of Jewish customs and celebrations? Was He talking about which Bible translation to use and what not to use? What was Jesus talking about?
When looking at the word worship in the Greek 4352 at the surface means to kiss or like a dog licking his master’s hand. Or in other words to prostrate or position of submission. But this word worship goes deeper G4314 and then deeper again G4253 which means to place in front, above, before, or prior. It carries an understanding of when in a play that the scene is darkened to hide the background or people while a spotlight is turned on and focuses on a single person as if this person is stepping out from the scene or moment for us to take note of.
Semi-recently the Lord revealed a deeper commitment level. To be a Christian we list a number of traits—reads the Bible, to pray, to attend church, to sing songs, being honest, to share Jesus with someone else, to give money, etc.—and on the surface those things are fine and needed.
But what else is a Christian? For years this deeper level inspired to me were two metaphors which tie into a singular word: relationship. Many Christians use the lingo, “God doesn’t want religion but a relationship”. And it is true that our conversations (prayer and reading) is a relationship with God to us and us to God. And so the first metaphor is the relationship between us and God in the context of marriage. As the Bible speaks of the Church being the bride and Christ being the groomsman or husband, there is an intimate relationship. It is the two becoming one. It is a genuine desire to have God so active in our lives and involving an active relationship with God in our lives that we fulfill what the Bible speaks about “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and pray always (Ephesians 6:18 and Luke 18:1) and other matters of prayer. To know God is to know His Word and there are a host of Bible verses concerning this such as taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8) and His words are spirit and they are life (John 6:63) and on and on. The other metaphorical relationship is the relationship of a father (Father) with his son/daughter that is intimate and trusting. Again, I wrote about this semi-recently about how we are to have a trusting relationship toward God (see especially my writing Beyond Belief as well as a number of other writings) and how He is a caring Father to protect, to guide, to nurture, to secure, to give dignity or worth, etc.
But more recently God desires something even deeper than honesty, surrender, integrity, etc. and that is for us to be vulnerable to God. We often perceive that word in the negative to be naïve, to be too trusting, to be childish, or to allow someone to be willing to be taken advantage of. That to be vulnerable means the absence of common sense or to be easily manipulated. But that vulnerability is not what is intended by God. To be vulnerable to God means beyond a trust—this trust is often a head-knowledge or by spoken word acceptance or belief—in God like we trust like the chair we sit on to hold us or like we trust a floor to not give out while we walk on it. Why? Because we see it, we put our full weight and dependance that we won’t get hurt. But carrying that into the spiritual, vulnerability means that we trust God to a measure or degree that we trust God for His best interest or best intentions. It is also being sensitive to God’s promptings and respond unlike some of us who request that doors have to be wide open, signs pointing, lights flashing, and God having to drag us kicking and screaming into His will (think of Gideon and Moses in their initial reluctance). In other words it is way beyond I believe it when I see it or speaking a fickle belief that I will go to church and serve God until someone offends me or my feelings get hurt or I am too tired to attend more than one church service a week out of three or I will do this but I won’t commit to anything beyond this point. In all of that we are living to God on our terms. That our activity, faithfulness, commitment, and/or involvement is measured on God moving and God making it easy or great in our lives but when someone dear to us passes away or leaves or something bad happens, we back off and follow God at arm's length and fight anyone (even God) if challenged to go in deeper. That is ok for the Called ones to be zealous but not me and only those who it is obvious that God has Called and not those who maybe had a detour or scar along the way. This is why the Samaritan woman was confused about worship because of her past relationships, she would only go to God to a certain level or understanding. The late Pastor Wayman Mitchell said, "Worship is the response to the revelation of who God is in the Bible." And because of that lack of revelation, we are trusting in ourselves because if God fails to fulfill our desires—money, healing, job, etc.—then we at least can trust in our family or ourselves to fill in the gaps where God fails to live up to our expectations. And to add music and emotion helps us to numb the need of that surrender. It is like drinking alcohol or taking drugs to numb the reality of life; we can add churchy things or religious things as a surrogate or substitute and feel good about it. But to be vulnerable to God is to be truly open to God. It is knowing fully, “…that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3). It is knowing that God has the best interests in mind for us. It is knowing that God provides in His time and His way. It is knowing that He can fight on our behalf and when to advance when He gives the signal. That we don’t need to trust in our strength, smarts, charisma, etc. (Psalm 20:7 and Jeremiah 17:5). It is knowing that people may do right and they may not always do right, but God is still God and God is still in control. It is knowing that God can guide, move, direct people or events of life to fulfill His desires. It is depending on God to be there in all times, not just in a last-ditch effort when all else has failed. It is a vulnerability to allow God to bend us and break us to cut us but knowing that all these are meant to make us to whom God chooses us to become. It is (again to repeat myself) knowing that God has the best interests in mind for us (Jeremiah 29:11 and Isaiah 55:8-9).
So then what is worship? A small partial statement said by Pastor Kevin Foley from a recent men’s discipleship message grabbed my attention (and inspired this writing) was the ark the covenant with the presence of God inhabiting the tabernacle with the mercy seat above the ark within or between the wings of the cherubim. And for many years I’ve believed that what is contained in that Ark were just the Ten Commandments. And not to minimize those, but it was within the understanding that God’s mercy (unmerited favor) above the Ark or above the contents inside the Ark overrules the Law. In other words that the Law said we are guilty of sin and deserve punishment but God’s mercy—through the blood of Christ spilled on Calvary’s tree—overrules and takes our punishment for us (see 1 John 1:8-9, 1 Timothy 6:15, Galatians 4:5, and a host of other verses). To continue the vein of what Kevin Foley spoke about briefly in his message was about the components of the tabernacle and their purpose and all that is needed and important and have their meaning or application to our lives.
But it was the Ark or rather the including of the other contents of the Ark of the Covenant that really grabbed my attention when my mind began to ponder the Ark (away from his sermon). So let us look at these three things inside as well as the mercy seat. First is the Ten Commandments. To help Man in his relationship with God, God codified how to have that relationship. We are to live by ten laws, commands, or rules with the first ones dealing directly with our relationship between God and man (or the vertical piece or bar of the cross) while the latter commandments deal with man’s relationship to one another (the horizontal piece or bar of the cross). And when summed up we are to love God with everything we are and to love our neighbor as ourselves. And many fall short there. But there was one man who was living those commandments to much of his ability (see Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22, and Luke 18:18-23) and yet fell short from making it to Heaven. Often we focus on the money aspect of the rich young ruler because of two reasons: our greed or covetousness that we have in our hearts to desire more than what God has already provided and to be content with that (again, a number of Bible verses about that as well as a number of writings about that) but also a wrong belief (which is also associated to the wrong belief in the prosperity gospel) that money or having means a right relationship with God and lack means we are not right with God. And, again, I wrote about this rich young ruler several years ago so I won’t go into it about this man. But what we see concerning the Ten Commandments are a physical object we can touch, to live by…and to find loopholes to support false doctrines or motives to sin. Again, Paul addressed this in a number of chapters in the book of Romans and I’ve written about this topic as well, so I won’t go into all that for time sake. But those Commandments are an establishment of conditional commands. To be in right relationship with God means that we are living by those standards and we believe that there will be blessing or favor in our lives by living right to God. In other words, say we obey traffic laws, have not committed a crime, and have not made any hurtful comments or threats. And so while driving down the road if we see a cop car, we are not dropping our speed or looking in our mirrors to see if he has kicked on his lights to come after us. We do not have a guilty conscience because we are living honest and honorable. We keep going about our business.
The second item in the Ark is Aaron’s rod that budded. This is an object that proved that God appoints leaders and anoints leaders and we cannot rise up in pride that we have accomplished something or have arrived to fulfill something that God never intended for us. An example of this—beyond the direct example of Aaron’s rod—was when King Saul offered a sacrifice before God when he was not told to as well it was not his place to do that. But upon further looking into this budded rod, it gives us more information. It tells us that God gets involved to defend us. It tells us that we can have a confidence in God to prove His will. And it proves that God honors or gives glory to those whom fulfill His desires or His will. This is beyond just physical obedience—what some people refer to as lip service. Scripture references to that are Isaiah 29:13, Ezekiel 33:31, Matthew 15:7-9 as well as a summation of Isaiah 1:10-17.
The third item in the Ark was a jar or container of manna. Manna was the food that God provided Israel while they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. But it is more than just food. Degrees of understanding come from John 6:35, 41, 48-51; Matthew 4:4; Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3; and a number of other scriptures. This manna represents life sustaining (John 10:10, etc.), a daily dependance on God…and it is far beyond food and money. It is that relationship or connection with God that becomes so intertwined in our lives that it would be impossible to separate who is us and who is God.
So within all that we see God’s direction, God’s covering for our lives, God’s will, God’s dignity upon us, and God’s personal involvement—provision, blessing, relationship—are within or under God’s mercy (the mercy seat). Which means that when we accept Jesus or are born again—see John 3—all of this Ark becomes part of our lives and/or is a blessing or integration to a Christian’s life. That by having God’s mercy (1 John 4:19 and Romans 5:8), these other components are available in our lives. Often we try to fulfill or obtain those other matters on our own ability first to hopefully attain God’s mercy (this is faulty thinking with the Calvinistic belief).
So then let us return to our original question concerning worship and why the Ark is important or significant. Revelation 11 ends with the twenty four elders fell on their faces and worshipped God and ends with, “Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple”. To help tie this together, allow me to bring this verse in Revelation 21:3, “And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.’” Almost impossible to grasp the weight of that but let us attempt at least the first step in understanding that and true worship with what Jesus said in John 4 to the Samaritan woman. The Bible—the powerful 66 books given to us—gives us an understanding or comprehension of God who made everything (John 1:3) placed significance past creation—planets, plants, animals, water, etc.—but points to a relationship…a special, important, intimate, connected relationship whom God desired one thing: love. A love not forced. A love not artificial or fake or manufactured. But a love that looks past people, a love that looks past sin, a love that looks past titles, a love that looks past violations, a love that looks past excuses, a love that looks past all things that can possibly separate us (Romans 8:38-39). And from that love—a giving, serving, surrendering (when God became man, Philippians 2:6-8), and forgiving love—given by God we ought to reciprocate by loving mankind—not compromise or what mankind likens to tolerance—in a way that we fulfill (again, wrote about this matter concerning Philippians 2:3-4) that by forgiving, loving, serving, surrendering our plans/will, etc. so that others can be pointed to God (John 3:14 and John 3:30) and in that we love God with all we are. Nothing to hold us back—no sin, no compromise, no bitterness, no hatred, no prejudices, no vengeance, etc.—giving our true everything—past, present, and future—to God whom we fully can be truly dependent and vulnerable with. But to tie in worship in its meaning, it brings front and center God. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God…” This means that when things began, God was already there…all of God. God the healing, God the provider, God the creator, God who hears and sees, God the forgiver, etc. and this is why the writer of the book of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11:6, “…for he who comes to God must believe that He is…”. Worship is not and never meant to be toward a person, a thing, an event, or even to an imaginary god whom we contrive to being flexible or limited or equal to us. But a God who forgives sinners; a God who heals the broken hearted; a God who restores. And our worship to God is our all given away or stripped away or to step out of the way so that God is all that is on stage. He who deserves all the praise (Psalm 145:3 and Revelation 5:13) may He be worshipped forever and ever. That is true worship and what worship means to me. What does worship mean to you?