The Discipline of Worship

Bienhome Muivah *

Prayers during Easter Sunday at MBC Church, Chingmeirong, Imphal on April 8 2012 :: Pix - Phurailatpam Banti

To worship is to experience Reality, to touch Life. It is to know, to feel, to experience the resurrected Christ in the midst of the gathered community. It is a breaking into the Shekinah of God, or better yet, being invaded by the Shekinah of God.

God is actively seeking worshipers. Jesus declares, 'The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him' (John 4:23). It is God who seeks, draws, persuades. Worship is the human response to the divine initiative.

In Genesis God walked in the garden, seeking out Adam and Eve. In the crucifixion Jesus drew men and women to himself (John 12:32). Scripture is replete with examples of God's efforts to initiate, restore, and maintain fellowship with His children. God is like the father of the prodigal who upon seeing his son a long way off, rushed to welcome him home.

Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father. Its central reality is found in spirit and truth. It is kindled within us only when the spirit of God touches our human spirit. Forms and rituals do not produce worship, nor does the disuse of forms and rituals. We can use all the right techniques and methods, we can have the best possible liturgy, but we have not worshipped the Lord until the spirit touches spirit. The words of the chorus 'set my spirit free that I may worship thee, reveal the basis of worship. Until God touches and frees our spirit we cannot enter this realm. Singing, praying, praising all may lead to worship, but worship is more than any of them. Our spirit must be ignited by the divine fire.

As a result, we need not be overly concerned with the question of a correct form for worship. The issue of high liturgy or low liturgy, this form or that form is peripheral rather than central. We are encouraged in this perception when we are realize that nowhere does the New Testament prescribe a particular form for worship. Infact, what we find is a freedom that is incredible for people with such deep roots in the synagogue liturgical system. They had the reality. When spirit touches spirit the issue of forms is wholly secondary.

To say that forms are secondary is not to say that they are irrelevant. As long as we are finite human beings we must have forms. But the forms are not the worship, they only lead us into the worship. We are free in Christ to use whatever form hinders us from experiencing the living Christ.

The Object of our Worship

Jesus answers for all times the question of whom we are to worship. 'You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve' (Mt. 4:10). The one true God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God whom Jesus Christ revealed. God made clear his hatred for all idolatries by placing an incisive command at the start of the Decalogue.

'You shall have no other gods before me' (Exodus 20:3). Nor does idolatry consist only in bowing before visible objects of adoration. A.W. Tozer says, 'The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him'. To think wrongly about God is, in an important sense, to have everything wrong.

We desperately need to see who God is: to read about his self-disclosure to his ancient people Israel, to meditate on his attributes, to gaze upon the revelation of his nature in Jesus Christ. When we see the Lord of hosts 'high and lifted up', ponder his infinite wisdom and knowledge, wonder at his unfathomable mercy and love, we cannot help but move into doxology.

To see who the Lord is bring us to confession. When Isaiah caught sight of the glory of God he cried, "woe is me!" I cried. I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. (Isaiah 6:5). The pervasive sinfulness of human beings become evident when contrasted with the radiant holiness of God. Our fickleness becomes apparent once we see God's faithfulness. To understand His grace is to understand our guilt.

We worship the Lord not only because of who He is, but also because of what He has done. Above all, the God of the Bible is the God who acts. His goodness, faithfulness, justice, mercy all can be seen in his dealings with His people. His gracious actions are not only etched into ancient history, but are engraved into our personal histories. As the apostle Paul says, the only reasonable response is worship (Romans 12:1). We praise God for who He is, and thank Him for what He has done.

The Priority of Worship

If the Lord is to be Lord, worship must have priority in our lives. The first commandment of Jesus is, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength' (Mark 12:30). The divine priority is worship first, service second. Our lives are to be punctuated with praise, thanksgiving, and adoration. Service flows out of worship. Service as a substitute for worship is idolatory. Activity is the enemy of adoration.

The primary function of the Levitical priests was to 'come near to minister before me' (Ezekiel 44:15). For the Old Testament priesthood ministry to God was to precede all other works. And that is no less true of the universal priesthood of the New Testament. One grave temptation we all face is to run around answering calls to service without ministering to the Lord himself.

Today God is calling His church back to worship. This can be seen in high church circles where there is a renewed interest in intimacy with God. It can be seen in Low Church circles where there is a renewed interest in liturgy. It can be seen everywhere in between these two. It is as if God is saying, 'I want the hearts of my people back!' And if we long to go where God is going and do what God is doing, we will move into deeper, more authentic worship.

Joyous Worship!