Picture Perfect Worship

I've spent this week talking about worship, but one of my issues with the church is we give a lot of intangible answers for what something is not, and I wonder if I have done any better. I honestly don't know.

To worship something means to declare it is worth your attention, time, and energy.

What is worship? Responding to God.

It seems so simple, and yet, it feels so complicated, especially when we try to dig it out from under religious tradition, which a lot of us are having to do.

So what is worship? Really? I don't know if I can really tell you, so let me show you.

Now, I know, it is our tendency to skim what we already know, but I would ask you not to skim because if we are having to really look at worship, we really don't know it. So let's learn from some folks who do.

2 Chronicles 5

² Then Solomon summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. ³ And all the Israelites came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month.
⁴ When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, ⁵ and they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The Levitical priests carried them up; ⁶ and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.
⁷ The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. ⁸ The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. ⁹ These poles were so long that their ends, extending from the ark, could be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. ¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.
¹¹ The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. ¹² All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. ¹³ The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:

“He is good;
    his love endures forever.”

Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, ¹⁴ and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

 

Luke 17

¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

 

Matthew 8

⁵ When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
⁷ Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith."

Luke 18
⁹ To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
¹⁴ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 7
³⁶ When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷ A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ³⁸ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them...
⁴⁴ Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

In each story, worship is the personal response to the way God responded to each person. Even in 2 Chronicles, the Temple was for everyone, but the promise of God was personal.

The centurion's faith that Jesus was a man of authority in a kingdom he only saw through shadows was personal.

The pleas for forgiveness from a man whose desire was to faithfully serve a God he continued to fail was personal.

The faith of a woman who had no words but only tears, who couldn't look at His face so she washed His feet, was personal.

Worship is personal.

It is a personal faith response to a God who responds personally to each person, who they are, where they are, and what they need. It is an acknowledgement of His ability and willingness to be exactly what I need because I realize what I always need...is Him.

THAT is worship.

And it isn't because the music is right, not because my mood is right, not because everything went well this week. It's for one reason and one reason alone.

Because He's worth it.


2014 Copyright Jerri Kelley Phillips
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