Principles
of Biblical Worship Rev. 4:9-11
We are engaged in the study of worship because what is embedded in this
whole chapter is a view of heavenly worship that should give us the framework
for understanding what the creaturely worship should involve or demonstrate in
history.
Worship is the submission and subordination of the creature to the
creator to honor and glorify the creator. That is the core idea. We ascribe to
Him glory and honor, we are thankful to Him. This can involve gratitude, giving
offerings, Christian service, reading the Scriptures, learning how God thinks;
all of these are part of that concept. It is a word that is used in a variety
of contexts in the Scripture.
The long definition: Worship means to submit or to subordinate my
opinions, preferences, thoughts, philosophy of life, finances, politics,
emotions, relationships, attitudes, actions, time, priorities to the authority of
God’s Word. It addresses every area of life. We have to subordinate ourselves
to God’s Word, which means that we have to exchange whatever our personal views
are for God’s—that is Romans 12:2. The Christian life is grounded in thought.
That means we have to take time to evaluate what is going on inside of our own
head, between our own ears. Thus worship is a complex idea that involves a
number of aspects from private prayer to public expression of thanks, the
singing of hymns and praise to God which reinforce the teaching of Scripture
and reflect upon God, who he is and what he has done—His person and His work.
It also includes bringing sacrifices and gifts for personal Christian worship.
Worship can be both individual and corporate. We may sometimes be emotionally
stimulated by worship but that is not the criterion of worship, only a
by-product.
Breaking that definition down, worship means to submit or to subordinate
my opinions, preferences, thoughts, philosophy of life, finances, politics,
emotions, relationships, attitudes, actions, time, priorities to the authority
of God’s Word. That means everything. That is Romans 21:1, to present your
bodies is a circumlocution for saying to present everything in your life in
service to God. That doesn’t happen in a one-shot decision, it happens over
time. We all grow at different stages and in different ways but it takes a long
time to take all that human viewpoint stuff that is going on in your head and
to take it out, identify it, and replace it with biblical truth. It also takes
a lot of courage and humility to do that, because as we grow up we adopt a lot
of things that make us feel comfortable—they work for us, we are fundamentally
pragmatic in our sin nature. But as we go through this growth process in the Christian
life the Word of God is again and again and again going to challenge us in the
comfort zone of our sin nature. Just because you like it and are comfortable
with it and it is your favourite thing to do doesn’t mean that is the best
thing to do that hon0ors and glorifies God. Do you have the spiritual courage
and objectivity and humility to face the truth of Scripture? We all go through
that change.
We know that worship is a complex idea that involves a number of
aspects. That is why it is difficult to talk about this; it is complex. The
word “worship” is used to describe a lot of different activities in Scripture,
from brining sacrifices to just simply giving thanks in private prayer. It
involves giving, offerings, a study of the Word; but fundamentally it is all
related to the subordination of our thinking to the thinking of God with a view
to change, to being conformed to the image of Christ.
Then we get into the idea that worship can be both individual and
corporate. Then, it is not wrong to be emotionally moved in worship. Isaiah
certainly was when he was brought before the throne of God. There is nothing
wrong with that but it is not the criterion, it doesn’t tell you whether you
worshipped or not, it doesn’t tell you whether it was better than other times
when you weren’t emotionally affected. When people have emotion stimulation
even as a subtle criterion what happens is that the next time, later on when
they no longer become emotionally stimulated by that, they try to find
something else because there is a subtle shift that takes place, like “I don’t
feel I worshipped this morning.” Emotion is valid, but only as a by-product.
There are two broad categories of worship, corporate and individual. In
the Old Testament there was private worship. Abraham worshipped God when he
brought Isaac for a sacrifice. There was the servant of Abraham worshipping God
when he prayed to God that God would guide and direct him to the right woman
for Isaac, then when he arrives and God answers his prayer he bows his head and
worships God. Personal worship is private and is related to the individual and
his own spiritual life. Ultimately, corporate worship is always built upon the
individual worship and begins with individual worship.
John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him by
means of the Spirit and by means of truth.” By means of truth: that is, it is
exclusive. There is right worship and wrong worship, and when people come along
and say, ‘Well I think we can do this form of worship,’ we have to have some
criterion to evaluate that. That is what we do with the Scripture. There is
wrong worship. Cain brought the produce of the field in Genesis chapter four as
an offering to God; Abel brought a sacrifice, a lamb. Cain’s worship was rejected.
Right worship has to do with the fact that it is truly biblical. In Leviticus
chapter 10 is the story of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, who were to
serve in the tabernacle, but they bring in an incense burner of the wrong kind
of incense. They were defining what worship was to them but when they brought
it into the tabernacle God took their life instantly because it violated His
instructions. Worship in the Scripture is exclusive, there is right worship and
there is wrong worship.
Our conclusion is that like everything else within the framework of
Scripture we must understand that worship is exclusive. So how do we come up
with a criterion to define what is right and what is wrong? That is where the
disagreement is. So we have to delve into the Scriptures a little more to
understand those particular things.