The Joyful Call To Worship

"Blessed are the people who know the festal shout..." (Psalm 89:15, ESV)
"... You are ever on their lips, but far from their conscience" (Jer. 12:2, HCSB).  
"... Because these people approach Me with their mouths to honor Me with lip-service--yet their hearts are far from Me, and their worship consists of man-made rules learned by rote"  (Isaiah 29:13, HCSB).  
"I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the LORD" (Psalm 122:1, KJV).

God pours out blessings on those who hear the call to worship, who prepare their hearts, and tune in to meditate on His nature and work.  The essence of this is making a "connection" with God as we make "contact" as it were into His dimension and throne room.  Worship is "worth-ship," and we give God His dues respect (render to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's ).  Worship is an attitude we can take with us beyond the sanctuary to the workplace, doing all, whatever we do, to the glory of God as one theologian espoused (cf. 1 Cor. 10:31).  Work is a form of prayer which is a form of worship, when done to the glory of God, as Augustine of Hippo said, "To work is to pray."  All work can be done to the glory of God (i.e., worship). 

But we should especially rejoice corporately with the body of Christ:  "I was glad when they said unto me, 'Let us go into the house of the LORD.'" (Psalm 122:1, KJV). We can get into a celestial or worship fix by not letting it become perfunctory or routine, or just memorizing the Dance of the Pious, and going through the motions--any lackadaisical spirit can be avoided and changed by adequate preparation--you cannot just expect to walk into the house of the Lord and expect a miracle at the door!

The point is to spread the cheer: "Once you've experienced it, you want to pass it on!"  Church is a spiritual checkup when we take inventory of our soul's needs and condition, but we must learn that it's not about us!  We must learn to focus on God; getting our eyes off ourselves and our problems long enough to realize the divine. Some may need to get into the mood so to speak, realizing that worship is not passive nor vicarious--we don't admire someone else worshiping!

The call to worship involves both thanking God for what He's done and praising Him for who He is!  When we do this we realize the inherent power of praise, for God inhabits the praises of His people (cf. Psalm 22:3).  This will help us to cultivate a heart of praise and worship as we learn to have the right attitude that no one can take away.   The real key to worship is the measure of our surrender, not the amount of the Spirit we have, but how much of the us the Spirit has.  We rightly submit to God's ownership of our soul.  We don't want to be like those who are the nod to God crowd on Sunday and go about their regular routine on Monday--we want the experience to last and to grow in us.  Some merely offer lip service to God and don't have their hearts in the right place!  But we must realize that there is no "one-size-fits-all" manner or style of worship, we are all built differently and find fulfillment in different ways.

But one thing is sure:  we are hard-wired and designed for worshiping God and won't be fulfilled without doing it.  Dostoevsky said that if we don't worship God, we'll worship something or someone else.  Woe to him who strives with his Maker (cf. Isa. 45:9).  Worship should be seen as a privilege and honor and we can say, "I get to worship!" For this reason, worship ought not ever to become blase!   Church is more than a social event and worship more than an existential encounter (it must be put into action as we turn our convictions and creeds into deeds).   The whole purpose is to get our batteries recharged and to get right with God, back into His service, and to learn more to seek His face and make course corrections in our life.

Malachi was written to those in Israel whose worship had become a sham, mockery, and travesty--and they were not taking it seriously--but their worship had become an insult to the grace of God all because their hearts were not right with Him and they didn't give Him His rightful place, playing church and he exposed the formalism of the worshiping--they were in a worship rut and this is what the doctor ordered:  a spiritual workout!   God frowns upon mere lip service and the memorizing of the Dance of the Pious (cf. above:  Jer. 12:2; Isaiah 29:13).   Soli Deo Gloria!

Lukewarm Profession

 "I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart" (Jer. 24:7, NASB). 
 "And I will give you a new heart, ad a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules"  (Ezek. 36:26-27, ESV).

There is a vast difference between the reality of faith and the profession of faith.  Jesus said there would be many who will say on the Day of Judgment, "Lord, Lord...."  But He never knew them! They trusted in their works, not in Christ!   Lukewarm water has no medicinal or marketable value and is good for nothing:  Jesus compared this to the believers at the apostate church of Laodicea, whom He rebuked and charged with being lukewarm.

There is no such thing as a lukewarm Christian, but there are lukewarm believers, who profess but don't have a living, growing relationship with the living God.  Jesus knows where believers stand, for they have made a stand for Him and Jesus is able to keep them in the Father's hands securely.   But there are many in the church who are like Judas, who merely go through the motions and talk the talk like believers, but haven't had a change of heart to follow on to know Him.

Some Christians need revival and have gone astray like lost sheep, but they still have a permanent relationship with the Lord.  Jesus will never spew them out of His mouth, but they may need to get reacquainted with the Lord and to walk closer to Him.  We don't become Christians merely by asking Jesus to come into our hearts, but by penitent faith.  When you accuse someone of being lukewarm, you are denying that he is saved.

Being out of fellowship is not to be equated with being lukewarm, for then many would flirt with that danger repeatedly. Some need to grow up and learn the basics and how to walk in the Spirit, so that they will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  If anyone loves the world, John says in 1 John 2:15, the love of the Father is not in him.  Even when a believer is out of fellowship, he never loses that love for Jesus deep down and knows something is not right.

The whole point of Christianity is that it's a relationship (or a walk) with Christ (not just a cliche) and this means progressing from a knowledge of a creed to a knowledge of a person!  You can be converted to the program and even be a do-gooder in the eyes of the church and still not be converted in the heart, though you profess the right dogma.  Those who are lukewarm are merely pretenders to the faith and a Christian is one who has a "sincere faith" and knows the Lord!

One needs to possess faith, not just profess it.  The "lukewarm" professor referred to in Revelation is not the same one that may be "halfhearted," and needs to get over spiritual complacency, laxity, or self-satisfaction and learn to grow in Christ; this is using two metaphors against each other and pitting one text against another. You cannot be a halfhearted or carnal Christian as a category of the believer--there's no such person, though they can be halfhearted or carnal at times.  He's not asking us to get more enthusiastic but to be filled with the Spirit as Christ lives in us.  There are no "lukewarm" genuine believers, such as referred to in Revelation, that are in danger of being spewed out of Christ's mouth or cast into hell--these are people who make a profession of faith but have no inward reality or relationship.

Nothing done in the Lord is in vain, and these "believers" are doing their works in the power of the flesh, not the Spirit.  Christ is merely comparing lukewarm water to that which is useless like the works done in the flesh.  He is not merely admonishing them to get more excited or put more zeal into their works, but to let Christ work through them as He lives in their hearts.  The Christian life is not an imitation--for the unbeliever can do that--but primarily inhabitation, whereby Christ lives in us and about the relinquished, surrendered, exchanged, and yielded life in Christ.  The backslidden Christian is never happy and this doesn't refer to him.

We tend to think that emotionalism or sentimentality is the key and those who are emotional have the edge, while stoics are somewhat retarded spiritually.  The litmus test of spirituality is not how we wear our feelings on our sleeves, nor our ecstasies, but our obedience.  Jesus said that if we love God we will obey Him. Samuel told Saul in 1 Sam. 15:22, NKJV:  "...Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."  Bonhoeffer said, "Only he who believes is obedient; only he who is obedient believes." 

We are to love God, but the test of love is obedience.  You cannot judge believers by their emotional state; only God sees the heart and whether it's in the right place.  We are not saved by emotionalism, intellectualism, nor legalism--nothing we feel, think, nor do--but by an act of faith, which anyone can carry out.  Faith in Christ is what gratifies God: "Now without faith, it is impossible to please God..."  (Heb. 11:6, HCSB).

In sum, Christ would rather have relationships with those who don't know Him and are honest about it, and with those who do know Him, but not with those who pretend to know Him; for He doesn't know where they stand and whom they will serve.  As it says of those who refuse to stand up for the truth in Jeremiah 9:3, don't be neutral but confess Christ unashamedly.   Take a stand, stand up for Jesus, show your Christian colors--dare to be a Daniel, who stood alone!  Soli Deo Gloria!

What is the Essence of Worship?

Caveat:  Only worship the LORD your God, for He alone is worthy, that even goes for angels who stand in the presence of God and represent or speak for Him.  "At that time a gift of homage will be brought to the LORD of hosts."  Worship is called that because of His "worth-ship."  We worship God for who He is and what He has wrought.

The typical believer thinks that he simply goes to church to "worship" God and hopes to get something out of it.  This couldn't be further from the truth, biblically speaking, that is.  We don't go to worship we are to worship with our bodies, our time, our talents, our resources, our opportunities, our money, our speech or testimony, our demeanor or attitude, our relationships, our vocations and vacations or witness.  Our whole life is a devotion to God.  "Present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God...."  Worship is a prostration of ourselves unto God, valuing and recognizing his "worth-ship" (the origin of the English word).  We "bow" to God ("worship and bow down," says Ps. 95:6). Whenever we give God His "due" we are worshiping and humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord--"God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Worship must be lively or "in the Spirit" and not "lukewarm, nonchalant, disinterested, or casual  (this refers to Mark 7, Matt. 15 and Isa. 29:13 which says, "Because these people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote." Jesus said, "But in vain do they worship me.")--we take God seriously and not treat Him in a flippant or frivolous manner.  Don't be a fraud at worship, but sincere.

Indeed, some are more demonstrative and some are by nature stoical or inhibited, but God wants us to learn to worship God, nevertheless--feelings are not wrong, but worship is more than emotionalism, just as much it is more than intellectualism.   "Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name, worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness"  (Ps. 29:2).  ("Bless the LORD, O my soul, all that is within me bless His holy name, says Ps. 103:1.  Jesus said that those who worship God must "worship in spirit and in truth," according to John 4:24.  

That means that accuracy and right teaching are important to God as well as how excited we get. Speaking of excitement:  Ps. 100:4 says, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, enter his courts with joy."  Ps. 47:1 says: "Clap your hands all ye peoples, shout to God with the voice of triumph."  Likewise Ps. 89:15 says:  "Blessed are the people who hear the festal shout," or "Blessed are the people who hear the joyful call to worship!"  or "Blessed are the people who have learned to acclaim You."

Worship is a celebration and meant to be happy and a "sacrifice of thanksgiving."  "He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me," says Ps. 50:23.  All worship glorifies God and whenever we do something to the glory of God it is a sacrifice to God, in fact, "whatever you do, do to the glory of God,"  1 Cor. 10:31.  God hates "solemn assemblies" and "religious feasts" (Amos 5:21).

 We offer our daily activities to glorify and honor our Maker and they are the worship we are called to do, just as the pastor giving his sermon is doing what God has called him to do in life (another example is the bricklayer seeing himself as building a temple for God, not just making money or laying bricks).  I've heard it said that we don't "go to church, we are the church."  It is the same in worship, there is corporate worship as the body assembles and we are not to neglect this, but we are to worship God individually (our private walk with the Lord), too and I don't mean like the farmer who says he can give God His due in the cornfield.

 The biggest misconception concerning worship is that one can listen to someone sing and that is worship per se.  "Sing to the LORD a new song {not listen]."   Worship is not passive, au contraire, it is very active and so active you would call it a sacrifice unto God.  Yes, it's sacrificial and going to cost you (you might have to give up something, and I don't mean for Lent)   We don't receive, we give--only God is worthy of worship and in today's society there are many idols people worship, such as fame, fortune, power, success,  and money even though we don't worship "idols" like the Israelites did.

There is no "one-size-fits-all" worship and some are traditionalists by nature and don't like new, untried activity.   God wants us to always give Him the credit and not think it ours.  The motto of the Reformation was Sola Deo Gloria or to God alone be the glory! The more we exalt God the better and we should be like John who said, "He must increase, I must decrease."  The whole idea is to get our eyes off ourselves and on our triune God.   As we get older we get set in our ways, but this is not ideal--we should be young at heart and relate to the youth, even then, and reach out to them--the older are to mentor the younger in the Lord.  Soli Deo Gloria!