What is Worship

Men from the very start have struggled to worship God in the right way. We have wanted to worship God in the way we want. Think to the very beginning of Cain and Able. Some of the very first human beings. One worshipped God the way God wanted to be worshipped and the other worshipped God the way he wanted.

It is for this reason that God that God had included in the giving of the commandments, how He wanted to be worshipped. The phrase “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way" is found in many places as it is in Deut. 12:31.

As time progressed, men in Israel had gotten better at perforiming the external acts of what they thought were worship, but this still was not worship. Jesus would elaborate on this in much detail in the Gospels. So what is this real worship that Jesus would describe.

Let’s start with the inner essence of worship and then work out to the more public expressions of worship services or daily acts of love, which Paul calls our “spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

“True worship is a valuing or a treasuring of God above all things.”

The reason I make the distinction between the inner essence of worship and the external expression of it is because I think Jesus did in Matthew 15:8–9:

Matthew 15:8–9 ESV

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

~John Piper

If the heart is far from Jesus, what does Jesus call this type of worship. Vain worship. Unsuccessful worship. Worthless worship. False Worship. Think of the Pharisees. Were they worshipping? The answer is yes. But not God, they were worshipping themselves. Worshipping their desires, worshipping their hearts and what pleased them. That is really revealing when it comes to worship. Worship is a matter of the heart which is expressed in visual and external ways. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Yet we cant forget that you can produce what looks pleasing in others eyes but that does not come from a pure heart but a heart of idolatry and self righteousness.

Who's glory are they most evidently trying to boast in? That's the question when examining the fruit of someone's life.

So, you can do as many deeds as you want and go to as many church services as you want and never be worshiping if it is all external and nothing is happening in your heart toward God. All true worship is in essence a matter of the heart. It is more, but it is not less.

~John Piper

Worship involves

bowing down/falling on your face (Gen. 24:48, Joshua 5:14)

sacrifice (1 Sam. 1:3)

following, obeying, serving (1 Kings 9:6)

doing what is right in His sight (1 Kings 11:33)

assign or credit the glory due to God (1 Chron. 16:29)

giving thanks (2 Chron. 7:3)