"Worship God!"

I remember praying for a newborn believer who was trembling in fear. When I asked him why he was so terrified he told me had started reading the Bible, beginning with the book of Revelation. When he got to chapters 8 and 9 he started to have horrible nightmares and needed prayer. I prayed for him and advised him to start his reading in John’s Gospel, not John’s Apocalypse. But then I thought about all the weird ways Christians read the Revelation; it is, after all, God’s Word and therefore designed to have a message that will reveal God to us and draw us closer to God.  Taking a fresh look at the book I concluded that the theme of the Apocalypse is very clear, simple and powerful: “Worship God!” (Revelation 4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 11:1, 16; 14:7; 15:4; 19:4, 10; 22:9).

In fact, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that our highest calling as human beings is to be worshippers, to celebrate Jesus, to bring honor and glory to God in every area of our lives. The word for “worship” (Greek proskuneo) in the Revelation (and the rest of the New Testament) simply means “to do homage by kneeling or prostration; to kiss the hand; to make obeisance and express respect.” It is a combination of intimate love and reverend obedience. We “worship” whatever we assign great “worth” to. Everyone worships something or someone. Not everyone worships God. The worship of anything or anyone other than God or in addition to God is what the Bible calls “idolatry.” To be honest, our instinct is to worship ourselves, putting ourselves at the center.

The issue of worship was central to Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness when Jesus responded, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Matthew 4:10). Jesus also exposed the phony worship of the Pharisees when he said (quoting Isaiah), “They worship me in vain, their teachings are merely human rules” (Matthew 15:9). When the New Testament church elders were asking God for direction, they gave themselves to fasting and prayer and worship (Acts 13:2). Paul’s confession of faith was simply this: “I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way” (Acts 24:14). To the Romans Paul pointed out that when humans begin to worship created things rather than the Creator, it results in a self-destructive lifestyle (Romans 1:25). “True and proper worship” involves offering our whole concrete selves to the Lord (Romans 12:1). The ultimate goal of spiritual gifts is worship (1 Corinthians 14:25).

There is such a things as false worship and false worshipers (Colossians 2:18, 23; 2 Thessalonians 2:4). However, Jesus called out “true worshipers.” Remember the conversation Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well? The Samaritans were a “mixed-race” people despised by the racially pure people of Judea. They also had a less than orthodox theology, disagreeing with Judea about the role of the Torah and the best place to worship. The Samaritan woman wanted to engage Jesus in a debate about theology, and almost succeeded when Jesus responded, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). However, the subject was not theology but worship. The heart of the matter was this: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24). God was seeking for “true worshipers,” not religious sects or theological debates. And what is a true worshiper? Because “God is spirit,” true worshipers “must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” It seems as though worshiping God “in your own way” is not necessarily true worship. True worshipers worship God in God’s way, and that way involves “Spirit and truth.” The Holy Spirit is to be our real worship leader, and the worship the Spirit will lead will conform to God’s own truth.

In fact, the Bible has a lot to say about worship and praise. (“Praise” is the outward celebration involved in our worship.) Here are a couple of simple, biblical outlines pertaining to praise and worship that might be helpful:

Why do we praise the Lord?

1.     God is worthy to be praised. Psalm 18:2-3

2.     It is good to praise the Lord. Psalm 147:1

3.     We are commanded to praise the Lord. Psalm 9:11; 22:23

4.     It results in spiritual freedom. Acts 16:25-26; Jonah 2:8-10

How do we praise the Lord?

1.     Praise with the mouth. Psalm 47:1, 5-7

2.     Praise with the hands. Psalm 141:2

3.     Praise with the body. Psalm 149:2-3; 150

So if our highest calling is that of a worshiper, and if the Father is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and in truth, then let us dedicate ourselves anew to worship God! Let us judge everything by the extent to which it will bring honor and glory to Jesus.