I want to preface this by saying that I am no master of worship. I am also not a scholar of worship. However, one does not have to be a master or scholar to understand the difference between biblical worship of God from unbiblical worship of self. The hope of this blog post is to not only teach, but also encourage you to grow deeper in in your worship time with the Lord.
What is Worship?
It is important to start first with what worship is. In my words, and as Constance Cherry described in her book the author of Worship Architect, worship is a conversation. There are times where we call to God (prayer, singing, giving, etc.) but there are also times where God calls to us (preaching of God’s Word, time in prayer, personal devotions, etc). Worship is more than just singing a few songs on a Sunday morning.
It’s important to realize that worship is a lifestyle. Worship is not a one time thing that we do through the week. Each day should be a day of worship. Worship is formational, transformational, relational, missional, and reproducible. In time, we will go through all of these in videos or more blog posts, however, today is an overview! All of these fancy words are to say that worship is so much more than singing songs.
Biblical Worship
When it comes to biblical worship, it is important to understand four questions:
- Why do we worship?
- Who do we worship?
- What is worship?
- How do we worship?
These questions help us answer what biblical worship is! We worship because God created us to worship Him. That was the goal of Creation- a perfect world of worship (Why?). We worship God and God alone (Who?). Worship is a conversation as described above (What?). We worship by having a lifestyle of worship (How?).
I want to focus quickly on how we worship for a second. We worship by singing, giving, praying, serving, and so much more. An example of someone in the Bible who understood biblical worship is King David. The book of Psalm is a worship book! David was in constant conversation with the Lord. Constant conversation is worship. Worship is not just singing songs. Worship is so much more beautiful than that!
Biblical worship is living a lifestyle of worship to God and God alone.
Worship of Self
The short answer to what is worship of self is pretty simple. Singing songs on a Sunday that you enjoy and not singing the ones you do not. See, that’s where worship turns inward to self. The focus then moves to personal choice instead of unbiased worship.
Worship is not about personal preference. Worship is about being unbiased because you are worshipping the holy, righteous, and perfect God. When we begin to have preferences, we begin to sin without knowing it. We are putting ourselves over God by choosing what we want. When we do this, we sin.
Moving Forward
Worship is more than singing a hymn or a contemporary song. In fact, that is just basic worship! God does not call us to be basic! Worship is a lifestyle. It’s giving. It’s serving. It’s praying. It’s having a daily walk with the Lord. It’s calling to Him and hearing His response.
How do you move forward? You, we, move forward by striving to live a life of worship. It’s simple in a way, it’s living a life that honors God. Please feel free to reach out to me should you ever have questions about this!
Dylan Newton
Worship Pastor
dnewton@lpfbc.org