A story is told that is sad because it is true. A woman in New Mexico was frying tortillas on her skillet. She stopped when she noticed that the heat marks on the tortilla resembled the face of Jesus. Excitedly, she told her husband and neighbors who agreed with her. Bringing it to the priest to be blessed, she was met with some reluctance on his part, but he was won over by the testimony of her hus­band that she had been a changed woman, a better wife — more peace­ful, happy and submissive since the tortilla had arrived.

The woman took her blessed tortilla home, enshrined it in a glass case with cotton batting (to resemble clouds), and opened her shrine to visitors. Within a few months, more than 8,000 people visited the shrine of the Jesus of the Tortilla. All agreed that the face looked like the face of Jesus (except one reporter who thought it looked like boxer Leon Spinks).¹

Why is the story so sad? Because it points out what worship has become for so many who call themselves Christian, an empty and superstitious ritual that bears little resemblance to what Scripture calls genuine worship.

Let's begin with a simple defini­tion. (I don't take credit for this; a friend attributed this definition to Warren Wiersbe, and I like it.) WOR­SHIP IS THE BELIEVING HEART RESPONDING TO ALL THAT GOD HAS DONE IN HIS WORKS, TO ALL THAT GOD IS IN HIS BEING, AND TO ALL THAT GOD HAS SAID IN HIS WORD. Please notice the key: worship is RESPONSE to God. The focus of worship must be God, and cannot be ourselves. The motive of worship must be a hearty responding to God, not the attempt to manipu­late Him for our purposes.

Any who are sensitive to the sec­ond commandment are sensitive to this distinction. The worship done using graven images is not sinful be­cause it uses artistry; it is sinful be­cause it tries to use creation to get to God, to reduce God to creation's level, to worship God OUR OWN WAY in­stead of His. Those who have a faulty, deficient understanding of the maj­esty of God cannot worship aright.

So, in this article, I suggest some basic principles about the blessed duty of the church to worship God. In a follow-up article, I hope to make the case that the church's duty is not only to be active in right worship her­self, but that she must call the na­tions, the heathen, the unconverted to worship Him Who is worthy. So, a corollary to the warning expressed above emerges: Those churches who have a deficient view and practice of evangelism will not worship aright, either!

Get Back to Basics⤒🔗

Get your Bible, please. (No sense trying to convince you about Biblical worship unless you are convinced by Biblical truth, by Biblical arguments.) Turn to Psalm 95 and read it through. Most of you will have been familiar with the words of the Psalm for most of your lives. Often, you have heard parts of it used as "Call To Worship" in church. But, have you ever read what it says about worship? Listen:

1. Worship, at its Very Least, is DE­LIGHT IN GOD that Results in Genu­ine Thanks and Praise Directed to Him.←↰⤒🔗

Note the verb tenses in Psalm 95:1 and 2: "sing for joy," "shout aloud," "come be­fore Him with thanksgiving" and "extol Him with music and song." No inac­tive, boring sameness. Human tradi­tion may never get in the way of the delight of the heart in the works, the being, the Word of God! But how often isn't that the case? How often don't we (even those who consider themselves "conservatives" within the Reformed tradition) elevate our traditional style of worship above almost anything else, even judging orthodoxy by it? I know one fellow who left a church because the minister didn't read the words of Exodus 20 verbatim each Sunday. He was incensed because "the Law had been trifled with." Proof in his mind that the church was "going liberal." Makes me wonder what he thinks wor­ship is.

Why may we, must we, could we, should we delight in our God? The first verse gives us a powerful clue: He is the Rock of our salvation! Wor­ship, whatever else it is, reflects our joy in His salvation, His grace, all that He has done for us in Jesus Christ. To use the language of the Apostle Paul: "He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:13­, 14).

2. Next, Worship means to STAND IN AWE Before the Greatness, the Majesty, the Holiness and Power of God.←↰⤒🔗

Little strikes us as awesome any­more. How can it, in a world where medical marvels have become com­monplace, where the computer does so many tasks instantly that used to take people weeks to complete, where communication across the world oc­curs in split seconds. But in a world where little is awe-inspiring, the be­liever had better never lose his sense of awe in the presence of the being and the works of God!

Listen to the psalmist: Worship, shout and extol Him, "FOR the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths ... the mountain peaks ... the seas ... the dry land."

To behold, to meditate on the power of creation calls you to stand in awe of God. I write these words only a couple of weeks after Hurri­cane Andrew, only a couple of months after traveling over the Rocky Moun­tains and standing on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Awesome. The song my teenagers love is a song I can't get out of my mind in the light of these works of creation's God:

Our God is an awesome God! He reigns from Heaven above, with wisdom, power, and love. Our God is an awesome God!

3. Third, True Worship Expresses HU­MILITY.←↰⤒🔗

Notice how the psalmist describes the attitude of worship as expressed by the physical activities involved: "bow down" and "kneel." Both involve expressing the humble heart before the greatness of God. Such a spirit of humility is possible only when one understands the next lines: "FOR He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care."

Get the picture? When we under­stand Who God is for us, and who we are before the ma­jestic Lord of heaven and earth, our attitude of wor­ship will not be mere tradition, or the manipulation of God for our ends, or the rote and routine practices of Sunday habit. Worship is right be­cause God is worthy. Worship can only be righteous when our hearts know and believe that.

4. Finally, True Worship doesn't End when you Leave Church. True Worship involves the LIVING OF ALL OF LIFE for God's Praise.←↰⤒🔗

Two passages are sufficient to make this point. The first, Romans 12:1-2, is well-known. In it the apostle, in­spired by the Lord, reminds us of the mercy of God in salvation, and on that basis urges us "to offer your bod­ies as living sacrifices, holy and pleas­ing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship." What specifically does this living worship entail? At the very least, nonconformity! "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed..."

The second passage, Hebrews 13:15-16 makes much the same point, but in different words. Living worship, ac­cording to the writer of Hebrews, in­volves the mouth: "the fruit of lips that confess his name." Additionally, it embraces relationships and generos­ity: "Do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacri­fices God is pleased." Now that is real worship!

And Don't Forget the Heart!←⤒🔗

Just one more note. Scripture speaks of a fundamental heart spirit within each man. If that spirit is right, worship is possible; if that spirit is wrong, worship will be too. The psalm­ist speaks of it in Psalms 95:8ff. He warns against hardness of heart. The con­verse, of course, is a soft, pliable heart, one of flesh instead of stone (as Ezekiel 36:26 vividly describes). The hard heart is the stubborn heart, the self­ish heart, unmoved and unmovable, the heart that will not delight in God's ways but insists upon its own. The soft heart is the heart that delights in correction from the Lord, that desires to be "transformed by the renewal of one's mind," for then it is more in tune with His will. The soft heart is the only heart that can "sing for joy to the Lord" and "shout aloud" to our God. Any other kind of heart merely goes through the motions. And that, my friends, is not worship; neither in church nor in life!