What is Worship??? | Theocast

The Meaning of Worship Beyond Music

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the word worship? For some, it's that moment before the sermon, the music, where we gather together and we sing. There's high energy, there's excitement, and we can feel alive.

We can feel the Spirit, and it's an exciting moment. For some, it's even more important and exciting than possibly the sermon or the fellowship itself. Worship is a powerful thing. At least it is in today's culture.

But then there's another side of it. There are those who go to services on Sunday, and that's not what they feel. They don't feel energy. They don't feel connected. They actually walk away not excited or rejuvenated, but they walk away discouraged.

What's wrong with me? Why am I not as excited as everybody else here that is singing? Why can't I feel the presence of God? Why is it that I can't worship like the people next to me? Then there's a third category of people who used to feel that, where they would go, and church was exciting, and the music was exciting, and they would just feel so alive, and they would just thrive.

Now, it feels as if things are cold and distant. They try, and they drum it up, and they fake it. Yet, when they walk away, they know they're still empty. Something's wrong, and something's missing. Well, today I want to talk about worship, what it is, what it's not.

Worship as Whole-Life Devotion to God

What is the design of music in the church? First of all, the confusion around worship is that we assume worship is always connected to music, and that's not necessarily true. The word worship means to value something, to put it of a supreme value of worth, and we have a lot of things in our lives that we consider to be of value.

But in the essence of the Bible, for instance, when God says, you shall have no other gods before me, what he means is you will not value, you will not center your life, you will not give homage and praise, you will not sacrifice to anything else other than me.

And that is what true devotion or true worship looks like. So it's not music. It's a whole life centered on the value of God. That's what it means. So when we value God, we're going to value His nature, His holiness, what He desires, what He commands.

And so our entire life, worship, is to then take that value and dedicate and focus our life and attention upon that. That's what worship is. You can see that throughout the whole Old Testament. Well, even when it says to worship the Lord your God, He didn't mean that necessarily in music.

Whatever our hands find to do, whether we eat or drink, whatever we do, do all for the glory and worship of God. When we talk about modern-day church, worship is turned into something that's different.

We use it in good ways. I am very thankful for good music that has lyrics that teach us about Jesus and music that makes it easy to sing. But that may not be the purpose behind a lot of worship music.

And I don't want to get into the intentions here. Let's just talk about biblically what you should be experiencing and what you should be feeling when you gather together with the local body. And let's look at 2 ,000 years of history.

Music in the Old Testament and the New Testament Church

From Scripture, how did they use music? Yeah, there was music in the Old Testament. Israel did that. But it wasn't as what you may think as far as they did something every single week. As far as when they gathered.

That would be, you know, different. Even the way in which the temple worship was, was very different than what we experience today. What we do know is this. The church would gather, and according to Paul, he made multiple references saying that we are to use psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to build one another up.

Music was always used, not only in the Old Testament, but we can see here in the New Testament. They would use it as a way to remember the truth of God. They would remember what God had done for them.

And they would use it to build each other up, to encourage each other, and to strengthen each other. So when a church would gather, they would read the Word, they would pray, they would confess their sins, and then in a way to encourage each other to unify themselves.

Because Paul says that unity, in Ephesians chapter 4, he says, be eager to maintain the bond of unity. And one of the things that unifies us is when we sing the truth of Christ and the promises of God, when we sing those to each other, it unifies our voice, and I get to hear you speak to me the truth.

What I love about it as a pastor when I go to church is I hear the gospel and the promises of God and his faithfulness and grace and mercy sung to me by my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It's at that moment the gospel is administrated to me, and I get to hear and I get to be encouraged.

So this is why he says with speaking the truth or singing to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And what is that supposed to do? Well, in Ephesians 4, it says that it's supposed to stir us up into love.

It's supposed to ground us in our faith. It's supposed to strengthen us. So music in the New Testament, there isn't a lot that's guided with us as far as style, but the intentions are very clear. And the intentions are to strengthen your hope and faith and trust in Christ.

It's to encourage you to trust the Lord more. As far as what you feel or what emotions that draws on, the Bible doesn't really give us any direction on that. The ultimate emotion that you have is not directed to reality.

There are times we feel sad, but yet our circumstances are not sad. There are times that we feel happy, but we're in sad circumstances. You cannot look at your emotions or you can't look at your circumstances to determine your relationship with God.

The Gospel, Emotion, and Assurance in Worship

So your relationship with God doesn't waver based upon your experience. I know some people feel that where your experience is directly tied to your relationship with God. So when you're experiencing just powerful worship, man, God is really powerful today.

But when you're not experiencing powerful worship, it seems like He's distant. But here's the truth from the Word of God is that's not true. Your experience of whether it be positive or negative does not change the work of God and the work of Christ on your behalf.

The only thing that changes that is, according to Romans, nothing. Nothing shall separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. He says not death or tribulation or trial or principalities.

There's nothing that can remove you. So your emotions may be manipulated and you are trusting your emotions instead of trusting the truth. This is why it's important what we sing. It's important that what we are singing isn't about what we're going to do for God or how we feel about God or what we want God to do.

We should be reminding ourselves of what God has done. If you look at a lot of the Psalms and you read them, you will see it's a reflection. They often reflect what God has done for them in the law and bringing them out of Egypt and the promises of eternal life in the new kingdom, the new heavens.

It's glorious because they're always reflecting on the person, the nature of who God is. And that's what our song should be, because we're gathering to be strengthened to build one another up. Worship should be that.

Ultimately, every Sunday when you come, you come dry and weary. You've been beat down by your own failures, your own emotions. You've been beat down by everything that is anti-God. We gather to hear his word.

We gather to confess our sins. We gather to receive of the word of the table, watch baptism. And then in all of that, we consider how to speak the truth of the gospel to each other through song. And if we're hearing about Christ, whether it be a slow song or a fast song, it doesn't matter what the emotion may be, the truth remains.

And that truth is what centers us. It's what gives us hope. It's what gives us strength. So if you're in a church and they aren't singing the truth of Christ and the finished work of Christ and what God is for us and his promises, we might want to stop and think, why are we singing these songs?

What are we trying to accomplish? Are we trying to drum up emotion for God or are we looking to the hope of God and allowing that to give us the safety and assurity and allowing that to drive these emotions of love and gratitude and thankfulness to him?

But do not think that your emotions confirm or deny you're standing before God. God's presence is never leaving anywhere. His presence doesn't go in and out of a room based upon a song or the request of it.

He lives and breathes with inside of us through this power of the spirit. And when we gather together, Ephesians says, the power of the spirit does something that is absolutely otherly. It's outside of this world.

When the body gathers together around the truth of Christ, we are encouraged by it. Hopefully this is helpful for you. Something to think about. Use the word of God to ground you in your hope and maybe rethink how your emotions and music, that's not maybe how you should relate to your God.

Maybe use the gospel to do that and then center your worship around that as well. Hopefully that was encouraging. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment below. We'll see you next time.