WORSHIP

Worship is homage rendered to divine Persons. In Israel this was by sacrifices, offerings, and various gifts, and this was acceptable as long as it came from a willing people whose hearts were moved by the sense of the goodness and love of God. But it soon became merely formal service, and therefore was no longer acceptable to God. In this the Spirit’s day it takes a totally different form. “God is a Spirit: and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth”, John 4: 24. The sacrifices we offer must be spiritual sacrifices, Peter speaks of believers as a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, 1 Pet 2: 4, 5. A ceremonial worship is of no value in the sight of God. The spiritual sacrifices would include thanksgiving, praise, adoration, the response from our hearts to the revelation of God in Christ. This will be our joyful service eternally, “His servants shall serve him”, Rev 22: 3. God delights in the praises of His people, Ps 69: 30, 31; Heb 13: 15. God must ever be the object of worship. “Worship God”. No creature can be the object of worship. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”, Matt 4: 10. For us in this day, it is God revealed in the name of Father. Father is a name expressive of love, and involves relationship. “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”, 1 John 3: 1. God would be known in this way, in this peculiar love which He has made known to us. Only children, or sons, can worship the Father, and nothing less can satisfy the heart of the Father, “The Father seeketh such to worship him”, John 4: 23. We do not worship as servants, but as children or sons. Love cannot tolerate distance, God would have us conscious of nearness and liberty. “We have both access by one Spirit to the Father”, Eph 2: 18; 3: 13. We who were once far off, now in Christ Jesus are made nigh by the blood of Christ, Eph 2: 13. The worship of the church will always have this distinctive character. In the coming day every family will worship God, each in its own distinctive character. We have the Spirit of His Son even now, so that we are capacitated to worship the Father, we have the affections and intelligence of sons. Nothing less than this can satisfy the heart of the Father. It is not a matter of words, the words may be very correct, yet they may not express acceptable worship. The words used may very imperfectly express what is in the heart, but the great priest over the house of God knows how to interpret them, and the worship goes up acceptably to the Father.

Yet God does look for intelligent worship. “God is a Spirit; and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth”, John 4: 23. It must be wholly spiritual. It is not in words, or acts, but in our spirits that we worship. Hence it must be by the Spirit. “We worship by the Spirit of God”, Phil 3: 3. He sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, and thus produces the response which goes up as worship. Then it must be “in truth”. That is according to the present revelation of God in Christ, and according to the relationship into which we have been called by His grace. Many Christians are still under the law, and attempt to worship God as the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, and they take the place of servants, at a distance. Such worship is not acceptable, it is not according to truth. No doubt the name in which God is now revealed would include every previous revelation. But it is our privilege to worship Him in the intimacy and liberty of sonship. It is written—“Thou art no more a servant, but a son”, Gal 4: 7. We do not forget that the Father is God. It is our privilege to know Him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we are brought nigh, “taken us into favour in the Beloved”, Eph 1: 6. It is only as taught of the Spirit that we can know the truth, and be maintained in the power of it.

The place of worship is the temple of God. Peter speaks of our being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Only we have to remember that in the present day God does not dwell or is worshipped in temples made by hands, see Acts 7: 48; 17: 24. The apostle could say to the saints at Corinth, “Ye are the temple of God”, 1 Cor 3: 16. It is not now a material or visible temple, but a spiritual one. It is composed of all true believers, all who have received the Holy Spirit. “In his temple doth every one say, Glory”, Ps 29: 9. “They that dwell in thy house … will be constantly praising thee”, Ps 84: 4. Believers have the liberty to approach God in the sanctuary, in the holiest of all, Heb 10: 19. There is no true worship to-day outside the house of God.

This is the day of the Spirit, and everything is spiritual, the house is a spiritual house, the worshippers are a spiritual priesthood, the worship is spiritual. How little is this known by Christians generally. Yet the Lord Jesus came into this world and died that He might accomplish the will of God, in securing spiritual worshippers who should worship the Father in spirit and in truth. May it be ours through grace to be found among them.

Worship is specially assembly service, “In the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”, Heb 2: 12. The great occasion for it is when we come together in assembly to partake of the Lord’s supper. If this be partaken of spiritually, it would naturally lead on to worship. Nothing is so calculated to produce such response from our hearts in bringing us consciously into the presence of divine Persons. In saying this we do not exclude the thought of individual worship. In John 9 when the man who had received his sight found himself in the presence of the Son of God he worshipped Him.

From Goodly Words vol 5 (1927)