Episode 4: What is True Worship?
Summary
Question: What is true New Testament Worship?
Have to let the Scriptures define terms. There is a lot of terminology thrown around in the religious world with worship leaders, praise and worship bands, etc.
Worship is a word that comes from worthy. Lordship to worth-ship to worship. In the New Testament, the Greek word for worship is proskyneo. The Persians had a practice that the Greeks called proskynesis, which was the act of being face down on the ground in front of the emperor in total obedience to him. A total bowing down in submission. Worship at its core means to physically bow down.
Worship 1.0 Hebrews 11:21 This is only direct reference we have to patriarchal worship. Jacob, an old man, is bowing down as low as he can get. An act of proskyneo, physically bowing down in total submission. This is how it was in the age of the patriarchs.
Worship 2.0 John 4:20-22 God upgraded worship from the direct physical after He brought the nation of Israel into existence. Once the temple was built, Jerusalem was the only place the Jew could worship. The only time the Jew could worship was on the feast days. Their worship was their participation in everything that was going on in the temple for those seven days of the feast week.
John 12:20 The Gentile could still participate by going up to the temple to worship. The same point is made in Acts 8 when the Ethiopian eunuch was traveling back from Jerusalem for worship.
Worship 3.0 John 4:21-24 Jesus changed it from a set time and place to in spirit and truth. Worship is taking place in the spirit realm, so how does a Christian do that?
Ephesians 2:6 In the spiritual realm the Christian is in the presence of God. Everything in the presence of God’s glory is face down, worshiping. This is a spiritual prostration based on truth. How would we know that the Christian has been raised up with Christ and seated in the heavenly places? You wouldn’t know that apart from the fact that the Scripture says that. When Jesus is talking about spirit and truth, He is talking about it being based on what the Scripture says.
The only people then who can worship God under the terms of the New Covenant are those who are properly immersed into Christ. If a person is not immersed into Christ and in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, he has no access to God, whatsoever. Regardless of how many praises he lifts, regardless of how many times he raises his hands to heavens, or bows low to the ground, he has no access to God. God is pretty plain that you’re not coming to Him except through Jesus Christ.
If you’re not in Jesus Christ, you’re not coming to God, therefore you’re not worshiping. The only people who can worship are those who are in spirit and in truth. When a person is immersed into Christ, from that point on he is in a state of perpetual worship under the terms of the New Covenant. New Covenant worship is the recognition that the inner man is always on the presence of God. There is no secular/sacred split, everything is to be carried out in holiness and righteousness before the Lord. Your perspective determines how you are going to live your life.
Satan has made the battle about worship from beginning to end. Satan can’t get worship directly most of the time, so he gets it indirectly through idols. That’s why the battle for worship is the biggest issue there is. God is calling us to higher level of thinking than the physical, calling us to walk by faith, not by sight, calling us to a position where we look at the things which are not seen. Worship calls out the best and the highest in us. New Covenant worship is in spirit and in truth and happens when the Christian spiritually recognizes his position in the presence of God because of what Jesus Christ did.
