This morning I want to begin a series that will examine worship. And this first sermon of the series will be somewhat of an introduction for the whole series and, therefore, a bit of an overview. But of all the sermons to preach in this series, this one might be the most difficult, for I want to try to answer what worship is.
Though the question is straightforward – “What is worship?” – it is a difficult task. For you cannot define it in terms of a number of external things, for all these things could then be done without worship ever occurring. Thus, to define worship is much like trying to pick up mercury on a table, as soon as you start to get your fingers around it, it slips out of your grip.
Therefore, the way I want to go about trying to answer this question is by asking another question and then working backward from this discovery to understand what worship is. Thus, let’s start by trying to answer the question posed to us in Matthew 22:36-38.
In this text, some Pharisees come to Jesus and ask him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (22:36). Jesus answers them, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (22:37-38).
Therefore, because we get to see into this conversation, we can be sure that our greatest calling is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, and with all our mind. So let’s try to answer the question, “What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind?” For I think in answering this question we will find an answer to our primary question: What is worship?
I want to give six realities that compose this answer, for seeing them step by step will help us see how we can answer our first question.
1) To love God is to worship him.
If Jesus can tell us that all the Law and Prophets hang on the commandments of loving God and loving our neighbor, then we can assume that if we are loving God in accordance with Matthew 22:37, then we are surely worshiping him.
2) To love God is to glorify/magnify him.
We know that our purpose in being created is to glorify God as God says in Isaiah 43:6-7, “I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made” (emphasis added). Because Jesus turns around and tells the Pharisees that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, surely this is the manner in which we glorify God in our lives.
3) Therefore, the answer of how to love God is also the answer to how to worship and glorify God.
For if worship can be seen in obeying the Law and Prophets and loving God fulfills the Law and Prophets then to love God is to worship God. And if our greatest calling is to love God and the purpose for which we were created is to glorify God, then to love God is to glorify God. Therefore, (as with the simple logic, if A = B and B = C, then A = C) to worship God is to glorify God.
For if worship can be seen in obeying the Law and Prophets and loving God fulfills the Law and Prophets then to love God is to worship God. And if our greatest calling is to love God and the purpose for which we were created is to glorify God, then to love God is to glorify God. Therefore, (as with the simple logic, if A = B and B = C, then A = C) to worship God is to glorify God.
4) Loving God is seen in keeping his commandments.
Jesus tells his disciples in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” Therefore, keeping God’s commandments is a pointer to the fact that someone loves God.
5) Love is more than external obedience or any external action.
Now this is something that strikes against much of what we say in the church as we have reacted against our culture. For example, we have heard couples divorcing with one spouse saying, “I just didn’t feel in love with him/her anymore and so we’re divorcing,” and we have shouted, “Love is commitment; it is staying together; it is laboring when you don’t feel like it.” And we are right. But we also need to remember that love is more than external service. In fact, you can do the most self-sacrificing acts of service and commitment toward someone and not love him. Thus, 1 Corinthians 13:3 says, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Therefore, love involves an inner reality, an inner essence, a disposition of the heart that is not tangible.
6) Loving God should involve every bit of who you are.
Jesus says that we are to love God with all our heart, all are soul, and all our mind. This surely means all of who we are.
Therefore, we’ve seen that if we could answer what is the essence of magnifying or glorifying God, then we’ve answered what it means to love God and to worship God. And we’ve seen that it involves an inner reality, a disposition of the heart that will work itself out in keeping the Lord’s commandments.
Therefore, let’s turn to Philippians 1:18-26. In these verses, we read Paul saying that he is sure that Christ will be honored (or magnified or glorified – or worshiped) whether by his life or his death. But how does he know that? For if we answer this question, then we have answered our most important question – “What is worship, or the inner essence of worship?”
Paul gives the answer in verse 21, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” And since we have looked at this text before, I will quickly break down what I think Paul is saying here. He is saying that Christ is magnified in his life because he treasured and valued Christ so much that he would rejoice in his exaltation even if it meant hardship and ridicule for Paul. So the reason God would be exalted in Paul’s life is because Paul treasured and valued his Lord so much that he did everything he did to bring honor to him.
In the same way, Paul knew Christ would be glorified in his death because for Paul “to die is gain.” That is to say, he treasured and valued his Lord so much that if death meant the loss of everything Paul had here and yet more intimacy with Christ, then he counted it gain.
Therefore, we see what Paul was doing to guarantee that Christ would be magnified in his life – he was treasuring and valuing God in his heart above all things and in all things.
This is why I said at the beginning that you can’t define what worship is with merely a number of external acts – it is an inward, heart-treasuring and valuing of God. And, though this doesn’t parallel with people because you never love a person to the degree that you love God – making him your object of worship1 – I think I can help paint what the inner reality of love is by pointing to two occasions with my wife.
My wife loves me very much. And I can think of two occasions in which this was very evident to me. One of these was while we were eating dinner one night. That night I came home from the church excited about understanding how much I was loved by God, and as I told Lili how exciting and joyful this made me, she started crying. And as she was crying, she said, “I am so happy.” I realized at that point that my wife really loved me, because she valued and treasured me so much that my happiness was her happiness.
On another occasion, Lili and I were lying in bed at night when I brought up an issue that was causing me a lot of struggle and heartache. After I brought it up, Lili did not say anything, but I soon realized that she was crying. As I realized this, I asked her why she was crying and she said, “I just hate it so much when your hurt.” Therefore, again I realized how much my wife loves me. She values and treasures me so much that my hurts are her hurts.
Now in both of those stories I realized she loved me because she was crying. But her tears weren’t her love toward me, but the valuing and treasuring of me in her heart that caused her to shed those tears. I could get myself to cry right now, and it might not be a sign of love at all, but genuine love will often produce tears.
That is why you cannot do a series on worship and just talk about the things we see, whether it be singing, praying, etc. For all these things can be occurring and worship may not. However, if someone is truly worshiping God (i.e., treasuring and valuing God to such an extent that it consumes one’s entire being) then there will often be singing and prayer.
Therefore, I think worship is hard to define, for it may show itself in singing at how glorious and good God is, silence in awe of his great majesty, or broken tears at the realization that you’ve despised his great glory in sin; but all these things will only come out of a heart that treasures and values God above all else, or they will not be worship.
Paul gives the answer in verse 21, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” And since we have looked at this text before, I will quickly break down what I think Paul is saying here. He is saying that Christ is magnified in his life because he treasured and valued Christ so much that he would rejoice in his exaltation even if it meant hardship and ridicule for Paul. So the reason God would be exalted in Paul’s life is because Paul treasured and valued his Lord so much that he did everything he did to bring honor to him.
In the same way, Paul knew Christ would be glorified in his death because for Paul “to die is gain.” That is to say, he treasured and valued his Lord so much that if death meant the loss of everything Paul had here and yet more intimacy with Christ, then he counted it gain.
Therefore, we see what Paul was doing to guarantee that Christ would be magnified in his life – he was treasuring and valuing God in his heart above all things and in all things.
This is why I said at the beginning that you can’t define what worship is with merely a number of external acts – it is an inward, heart-treasuring and valuing of God. And, though this doesn’t parallel with people because you never love a person to the degree that you love God – making him your object of worship1 – I think I can help paint what the inner reality of love is by pointing to two occasions with my wife.
My wife loves me very much. And I can think of two occasions in which this was very evident to me. One of these was while we were eating dinner one night. That night I came home from the church excited about understanding how much I was loved by God, and as I told Lili how exciting and joyful this made me, she started crying. And as she was crying, she said, “I am so happy.” I realized at that point that my wife really loved me, because she valued and treasured me so much that my happiness was her happiness.
On another occasion, Lili and I were lying in bed at night when I brought up an issue that was causing me a lot of struggle and heartache. After I brought it up, Lili did not say anything, but I soon realized that she was crying. As I realized this, I asked her why she was crying and she said, “I just hate it so much when your hurt.” Therefore, again I realized how much my wife loves me. She values and treasures me so much that my hurts are her hurts.
Now in both of those stories I realized she loved me because she was crying. But her tears weren’t her love toward me, but the valuing and treasuring of me in her heart that caused her to shed those tears. I could get myself to cry right now, and it might not be a sign of love at all, but genuine love will often produce tears.
That is why you cannot do a series on worship and just talk about the things we see, whether it be singing, praying, etc. For all these things can be occurring and worship may not. However, if someone is truly worshiping God (i.e., treasuring and valuing God to such an extent that it consumes one’s entire being) then there will often be singing and prayer.
Therefore, I think worship is hard to define, for it may show itself in singing at how glorious and good God is, silence in awe of his great majesty, or broken tears at the realization that you’ve despised his great glory in sin; but all these things will only come out of a heart that treasures and values God above all else, or they will not be worship.
1) Because true worship will be shown in response and action but the action does not necessitate love or worship.
So I cannot start where it would be easy to start, with all the things that we think make up worship. And in everything I preach from now on in which we look at these things that might compose a “worship service,” we must remember this inner heart essence of worship or they will all be vain.
2) Because worship (because of its nature – treasuring and valuing God so that it consumes your entire being) should be both what we do in or “worship services” and what we do on Monday, Tuesday, etc. whether it be changing the tire, eating breakfast, or going to work.
This inner reality makes worship something that can and should be done in all of our lives. Therefore, in a sense every sermon could fit in a worship series instead of the ones I have picked out for these next few weeks.
3) If this internal treasuring and valuing (prizing) of God is the essence of worship, then it is something that is necessary and yet is not in our control.
If worship were just a number of external things, then we could come in, do all of them, and know we worshiped. However, because it is a valuing and prizing of God in your heart, then there will be times when we will have to fight and pray that God would let us see how glorious and worthy he is so that we might truly worship him. Thus it was very fitting for us to begin this morning singing, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord …”
Thus, I think this shows us why it is so important that we gather with the community of believers and never forsake the assembling of the brethren, for we need each other – encouraging, teaching, exhorting, praying – if we are to live lives of continual worship before our Lord.
May we therefore labor to this end, worshiping our Lord. Amen.