Worship Is: Resting From Our Labors

This is the first in a series of "Worship is...." posts tracing worship through the Scriptures. So much has been written and spoken in recent days about worship. Sometimes I get the feeling some of what is being said is not necessarily Scriptural but can't place my finger on it. So it's a good thing to continually go back and see what the Scriptures say about anything in life and especially about something as important as worship in the life of the church.

Perhaps the earliest passage concerning worship is the account of God resting on the seventh day of creation.

Genesis 2:2-3 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

This tells us initially that:

1. God rested from his work on that day
2. God blessed and sanctified the day by resting in it

The word translated here "sanctified" means "to make something holy; to set something apart; to distinguish it." Literally, the phrase means essentially that God made this day different. However, in the context of the Law, it means that the day belongs to God; it is for rest from ordinary labor for physical rest and to give more focused attention to God.

How does this inform our worship? Let's look at the fourth commandment in Exodus.

Exodus 20:8-11 "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. "Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

This tells us because God rested, we rest. We observe the same pattern of work and rest that God observed. God worked, we work. God rested, we rest. "Keeping the sabbath holy" means keeping it "set apart," separate, different, from other days as God established it. The day "belongs to" God and is set apart for him alone. Because six days were "enough" for God to do his work, they should be "enough" for us as well.

Advent: Athanasius' "On the Incarnation"

"Now in dealing with these matters it is necessary first to recall what has already been said. You must understand why it is that the Word of the Father, so great and so high, has been made manifest in bodily form. He has not assumed a body as proper to His own nature, far from it, for as the Word He is without body. He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men. We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There' is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning. "

Reflections on General Assembly Worship

Worship is about the heart, but that includes the head, too. Christians worship in Spirit and truth - both - not one or the other. But, generally speaking, some of us lean more toward the Spirit - more feeling oriented, more intuitive and more artistic while others of us lean more toward the truth - Word oriented, results-oriented, bottom line and concrete. I believe that good worship planning takes both sides into account. For example, as we worshiped earlier today at the EPC General Assembly, during one of the instrumental interludes, the video guy put up a Scripture, allowing us to meditate on that while the instruments played. But this evening, there were several interludes during which they did not use Scripture on the screen, but rather focused the cameras on the soloist.

I suggest that the afternoon session engaged more of the congregation in worship during the interludes than the evening session. The combination of interlude and Scripture text appealed more to both groups. Those who are more intuitive and artistic would have joined in the "Spiritual moment" watching the soloist play to the glory of God, while those who are more Word-oriented would have found watching the soloist distracting from worship, but because they had a Scripture passage on which to meditate they could enter in to God's presence at the same time but with a different focus! This is a priniciple we can utilize in our own worship at MG - making worship engaging for both groups at the same time.

The Worship Leading Choir

The worship leading choir is a bit of a new concept and is articulated by Dave Williamson at http://www.brentwoodbenson.com/wlc/ Dave is a long-time choral director and arranger for Word Music. Dave outlines what he considers the difference between a "performance or traditional choir" and a "worship leading choir." See below.

Dave writes:
We all know what a choir is. And most of us know what worship leading is when we see it. But what do we mean by the term, “Worship Leading Choir?” Don’t all church choirs lead worship? The answer is, yes and no! Yes, in the sense that every “living sacrifice” offered by the believer is an act of worship, and every time any choir of believers sings about God in spirit and in truth it is an act of worship. But, No, in the sense that, until our hearts, minds and spirits are fully engaged in passionately glorifying Jesus in the congregation so that its members are drawn with us into an encounter with the living God, worship leading has not fully happened.
The worldwide form today’s choir is beginning to take on is a departure from much of the “traditional” aspects we have come to recognize.

• The emerging choir is not primarily about performance; it is primarily about worship.
• It’s not about being slick; it is about passion.
• It’s not about acquaintanceship; it is about family.
• It’s not about momentary emotion; it is about eternal significance.
• It’s not about competition; it is about servanthood.
• It doesn’t view talent as primary; it does view character and faithfulness as primary.

The Worship Leading Choir stands before a congregation as a well-schooled, unified battalion, locking arms to come both humbly and boldly into God’s presence, realizing that every word that enthrones Jesus dethrones the enemy. When it sings, it is not to impress, but to inspire. Its audience is not the congregation, but together with the congregation, their joint audience is God Himself. Its members may sing music that is traditional or contemporary, black or white (or somewhere in between). They may be young, old, or both. They may wear robes, suits, or jeans. They may offer musicals, cantatas, oratorios, or worship concerts. They understand their calling, and they are passionate about fulfilling it. They may be described as “ushers,” for their task is to usher people into an encounter with God.

More on the Worship Leading Choir another time....

What and Why Should We Worship?

Romans 1:23-25 "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-- who is forever praised. Amen" (NIV).

The Romans passage above tells us in context that ungodly people do not worship the Creator, but rather the creation. Why is it wrong to worship the creation instead of God? It is because God is greater than his creation. The creation has no power greater than God's power. Psalm 115:3 says "God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him." John 9 compares God and his creation to a potter and his pot, saying that the potter can do whatever he wishes with his creation making one a vessel of honor and another a vessel for common use. God as creator can do whatever he wishes with his creation and he can require whatever he wishes from us. He can also give to us whatever he wishes.