“We had a good worship service this morning,” one lady said to another as they left the church. While this is a great sentiment and the preacher loves to hear such comments, we have to ask how much it has to do with worship.
If we define “worship” as a show that has religious content, we are far from its meaning. Christian entertainment is wonderful and can lead to worship, but it is not worship itself. In fact, if someone else has to do it for you, it can never be considered worship. While I do not wish to denigrate anything else, worship is personal and can be tremendously meaningful once discovered.
The word translated “worship” in the New Testament is proskuneo. I like the definition found in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance: “to prostrate oneself in homage, to adore.” As an example of how the word might be used, this example is cited: “to kiss, like a dog licking the hand of the master.” I have heard worship described as “declaring the worth-ship of God.” This is not wrong but incomplete. It contains none of the humility or love that the New Testament word imagines.
Probably the best passage to illustrate this comes from Psalm 123. “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God until He has mercy on us.” (NRSV)
No one can adore God for you. Our order of worship on Sunday morning can lead to worship (or not) but cannot worship God for you. Neither can anyone trust Him or lean on Him for you.
Now let us add to the equation. Our God is a big God. But just how big He might be is beyond our ability to fathom.
Paul gives us an uncanny illustration in Ephesians 3:20-21 that may help. To paraphrase: Our God can abundantly answer far more than we can ask, but He can also abundantly answer more than we can imagine asking. This seems to be a contradiction in terms. But has He ever provided for you in ways that you could not have even have imagined, even a few months earlier?
A college friend celebrated 25 years of ordination this past year. He made the statement that his life had been good but also filled with unexpected twists and turns. Most of us, with some years under our belt, feel that way. We had life planned but it just didn’t work out that way.
Jesus knows what we need long before we know to ask. Our worship and our trust in Him are even more important than the “asking” portion of our prayers. How often have we gotten what we wanted but soon discovered it was not what we needed? Our God is big enough to lead us in a right direction.
Because of the twists and turns, and for other reasons, there are times we need to trust Him, and a life of worship can be seen as our greatest asset. There are times we have to lean on Him.
The Rev. Randy Spaugh is pastor of Faith Fellowship Church in Kinston. Reach him at drrandyspaugh@gmail.com.