“Worship.”
We say it on Sunday morning.
Many churches have a “worship service.”
They have “worship music.”
They have a “worship leader.”
The word has come to mean a segment of a church service, twenty minutes of singing before the sermon, and I wonder if we know how far that is from what God called worship in the first place.
The first time the word appears in the Bible, there is no band and no platform and no song.
Abraham had been walking for three days.
He had the wood, the fire, the knife, and his son.
He was headed to a mountain God had shown him, and what God had asked him to do there was the hardest thing a man has ever been asked to do.
He told the young men who were with him to wait.
"And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." Genesis 22:5.
Worship.
That is what Abraham called it.
A three day walk up a mountain with the son he loved, a knife in his hand, and an altar in his future.
The first time God used the word in Scripture, He used it to describe costly obedience, not pleasant feelings.
We have drifted a long way from that.
I wonder if we have narrowed the word down to something we attend rather than something we live.
Something we consume rather than something we give.
Because when you go back through the Bible and read what God called worship, it looks very little like what most of us call worship today.
In the Old Testament, worship meant bringing an animal to an altar.
A literal sacrifice.
The blood went on the altar and the smell went up to God and the worshipper went home knowing something had died in his place.
We do not do that anymore, and we should be glad.
Christ offered Himself once for all, and there is nothing left for us to slay.
The law is fulfilled.
But I wonder if we threw out the cost along with the animal.
Paul wrote to the Romans, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Romans 12:1.
The sacrifice did not go away.
It just changed forms.
The sacrifice is now you.
Your body.
Your appetites.
Your time, your energy, your comfort, your preferences.
The sin you would rather keep.
The pride you feed every morning without even meaning to.
"And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Galatians 5:24.
Paul did not say managed or reduced, he said crucified.
That is a violent word, and it is supposed to be.
Worship that costs the worshipper nothing is not the worship God described.
David understood this.
When Araunah tried to give him the threshingfloor and the oxen for free, David would not take it.
"And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver." 2 Samuel 24:24.
I love that verse.
David refused to give God something that cost him nothing, and I wonder if we have stopped asking that question.
What did my worship cost me this week?
What did I bring that I actually felt?
What did I lay down that I would rather have kept?
The truth is, a great deal of what we call worship arrives empty handed.
It consumes ninety minutes of production and goes home.
Nothing was given.
Nothing was surrendered.
Nothing died.
Israel was told to bring the first of the harvest and set it before the Lord.
"And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which thou, O LORD, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before the LORD thy God, and worship before the LORD thy God." Deuteronomy 26:10.
The first fruits, not what was still around after the household took its share and the cupboards were full.
The first of it brought while the rest of the harvest was still uncertain, while the rain had not finished and the field was not all in.
That is what made it worship and not accounting.
Solomon said, "Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase." Proverbs 3:9.
Substance is what you actually have.
Your income, your table, your home, your hours.
The first portion of the paycheck, not what is left after the bills are paid and the groceries are bought and the month has taken its cut.
The first hour of the day, not the one that is left over after everyone else has been served.
There is something about bringing the first that says God is more important than the budget.
He gets the portion that mattered most, not the portion I would not have missed.
Then there is the matter of how we come.
Joshua met the captain of the host of the Lord outside Jericho, and his response tells us everything about the posture of worship.
"And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?" Joshua 5:14.
Face on the ground, and then a question.
Not what can you do for me, but what are you saying to me?
Joshua did not ask what he would get out of the encounter.
He asked what he was to do.
That is the posture.
Humility, and then service.
Coming low.
Coming to be told what to do, not to be made to feel something.
Moses was told to take off his shoes.
"And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Exodus 3:5.
He was not told to do that because shoes are unholy.
He was told because the presence of God changes what is appropriate.
You should prepare yourself.
You should come differently than you would come to any other place.
"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." Hebrews 12:28.
I think this is where dress belongs in the conversation. (And I want to be careful here, because clothing does not make a worshipper, and I am not talking about expensive clothes or a certain style. I am talking about what our preparation communicates.)
We dress for things that matter to us.
We dress for a wedding, for a funeral, for a job interview, for a dinner with someone we respect.
I recently wrote about “The Lost Art of Sunday Best”, you can read that post free:
We know that how we present our bodies says something about the weight we have given the occasion.
I wonder if we have lost some of that when it comes to the gathered people of God.
Rolling out of bed and coming before the Lord and His people unwashed and in the clothes we would run errands in is a statement, whether we meant it as one or not.
Preparing ourselves says this is important.
That is not legalism, it is reverence taking a visible form, the same way it did when a man untied his sandals on holy ground.
Then there is the question of who the worship is actually about.
"Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness." Psalm 29:2.
"All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name." Psalm 86:9.
The glory due unto His name.
That is the subject of worship—not my story, not my feelings, not my personal breakthrough, not what God did for me last week.
Who. God. Is.
I wonder if we have noticed how many of our worship songs are about us.
“I need you.”
“Come fill me.”
“Do it again.”
“Meet me here.”
“I, I, I. Me, me, me.”
God appears in the lyrics mostly as a supplier, and the singer stays at the center of their own devotion.
Even the way we talk about it afterward is about the experience.
Did you feel it?
Was it powerful?
Did it move you?
And then there are the songs themselves.
Seven words repeated eleven times over a beat that would not be out of place in a bar.
Vain repetition.
By the fifth pass nobody in the room is thinking about God, they are riding a feeling.
The Lord addressed this plainly.
"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." Matthew 6:7.
"This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matthew 15:8-9.
Vain worship is a real category in Scripture.
It is possible to sing with genuine emotion and real volume and have God call the whole thing empty.
The measure is not whether we felt something.
The measure is whether the words were true about Him and whether the heart behind them was near.
Both things belong in a Christian's mouth.
Scripture is full of petition, and there is nothing wrong with telling God what you need, but when what He can do for me crowds out who He is entirely, the worship has quietly become something else.
Worship is not an event you attend—It is a life you live.
Jesus said it to the woman at the well.
"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." John 4:23-24.
She had asked a location question, “Which mountain, which temple, which place?”
Christ answered with something location cannot contain—Spirit and truth.
They do not need a building or a band.
They are in the kitchen at six in the morning and in the car on the way to work and in how a woman handles her money when no one is watching and how she speaks to her husband when she is tired.
"By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Hebrews 13:15-16.
Continually.
And the sacrifices God named there are praise, doing good, and sharing what you have.
Not one of them requires a platform or a sound system.
I’ll say it again,
“Worship is not an event you attend—It is a life you live.”
It has more to do with what you give and less to do with what you get.
So perhaps the question to carry is not whether the music was good?
Perhaps the question is— what your worship cost you this week?
What did you bring in your hands.
Did you come low or did you come casual?
Were the words in your mouth about Him?
Abraham went up that mountain with everything he loved and called it worship.
Can we at least come with our own lives in our hands as an offering in worship?
Biblical Womanhood
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