All creation and the people of God fall down before the Crucified and Risen Savior, the Lamb who was slain and sing a new song, "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and they will reign on the earth." (Revelation 5:9,10) Thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand angels sing, "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise." (Revelation 5:12)

Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them sing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and ever." (Revelation 5:13)

God's people worship God in Christ on earth as he is in heaven. "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9) We are members of the priesthood of all believers offering our lives "as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is our spiritual act of worship." (Romans 12:1)

Jesus told the Samaritan woman he met at the well that "true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23,24) Jesus was countering the argument that worship was merely a matter of what was said and where it was said. He was rejecting the competition between the religious authorities in the temple in Jerusalem and their rivals in Samaria. He stated that what was essential was the spirit of worship, not the letter of worship. Was it sincere worship, heart worship, or was it merely superficial, hypocritical worship, a matter of form rather than substance? The problem of the religious leaders of Jesus' day was a confusion of values. They valued tradition over genuine worship. "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." (Mark 7:6,7)

Genuine worship is heart worship. It is sincere worship. It is worship of the whole life. True worship, as opposed to false worship, is worship of the true God, rather than worship of our own felt needs. Worship is not meant to please us, but to please God. What pleases God is for us to learn how to honor him by serving others. All too often worship becomes spiritual entertainment in which our sense of wellbeing is indulged. "There is no question that authentic worship will meet people's needs. The problem occurs when worship forms are focused on meeting people's felt needs. Each week, the church is filled with people whose felt needs have been defined for them by a consumer culture that generally urges them to focus on self-fulfillment. The role of the church is not to meet felt needs but to show people that their real needs go deeper.

Can contemporary worship forms address people's real needs? Certainly. But in choosing only forms that are comfortable and familiar, there is always the tendency to cater to what people want to hear and feel, rather than confronting them with God, whose presence is not always so comfortable. And a God made comfortable by market-driven worship is unlikely to confront sinners with their needs for repentance or a gospel that is fundamentally about self-denial rather than self-fulfillment." (Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger, Christianity Today, August, 2009)

St. Paul cautioned those who dominated worship by elevating their own spiritual gift over others. He told them that their speaking in tongues edified themselves at the expense of others. Worship is meant to edify all who are present, not just those who valued their own spiritual gifts. (q.v. 1 Cor.14:2-5)

No one group in the congregation should insist on their own style exclusively because it meets their own needs at the expense of others. We are gathered together for mutual edification. If a gift does not meet the need of others by clearly communicating the Gospel, then it must make way for other gifts that will be more relevant and effective. St. Paul writes that we should "try to excel in gifts that build up the church." (v.12) The criteria for judging whether a gift is effective is that an outsider will have his real needs exposed and will experience the presence of God in worship. (vv.24,25)

The liturgy and music of the church can sometimes be like speaking in tongues. It needs interpretation for it to be relevant and effective. The traditional forms which have become second nature to us may edify us but may be a barrier to others. Resistance to other forms of worship may be selfish. What works for us may not work for others. Our concern should be to provide opportunities for genuine worship for others, as well as ourselves, if we seek to reach others for Christ.

All worship is culturally conditioned. As culture changes, so does worship, if it is to keep in step with the Spirit and, like Jesus, become incarnate, truly human, one with us in the world. If our worship remains frozen in time, it will be a museum piece, rather than living and growing to meet the needs of the community. Genuine worship will retain the best of the past, which was contemporary in its day, with the best of today. This is what the Reformers did in the 16th century. Latin was replaced by the vernacular. Congregational participation increased. Preaching and reading from the Bible in the language of the people was introduced. Communion was offered more frequently in both kinds: the cup as well as the bread.

Worship is composed of praise, prayer and proclamation. To prophesy is not just to fore-tell the future but also to tell forth the Gospel. We tell the worth of God in Christ as we proclaim the Gospel. We honor God in Christ when we teach and preach the Scriptures. The kind of worshipers the Father is seeking are those who will worship in spirit and in truth - those who worship from the heart and proclaim the truth of Christ in the language and forms of the present. This is what we are seeking to do. We will not always succeed. Sometimes we will fail. But our desire is to worship in spirit and in truth. We will seek to excel in gifts that build up the church. We seek to proclaim the Gospel so that people who come to our worship will find their real needs revealed, and they will experience the presence of God in our midst.

A true test of whether you genuinely worshipped today would be whether the secrets of your heart were laid bare and that God was revealed to you in spirit and in truth. Did you hear the Spirit of truth speaking to you? Was your heart touched and your mind edified? Was your comfort zone disturbed? If so, what are you going to do about it? How will it impact your life? How will tomorrow be different because you were worshipping today?

END