The Pursuit Of Worship - Week 2

Questions to Ponder from last week:

1. Am I at a point that God can bring a new Jubilee in my life?

2. Am I ready for a recover of what was lost and a discovery of what God is doing now?

3. Am I trying to bring back the glory of God in my life by my own plans, or in God's way?

4. What can I change in my life that will allow God to make His presence manifest?


This week, we are going to start taking a look at some of the elements of the pursuit of worship. Our final journey starts in the book of Acts.

Acts 13:1-2 [NIV] - Now in the church that was Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, "Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

this passage speaks of the church at Antioch, which is really the springboard of bringing the ideas of worshiping God to the world. It was the place where Barnabas and Saul (changed to Paul by God on the road to Damascus) were set apart by God because they were pursuing a relationship of worship with Him by ministering to the Lord and fasting.

The idea of ministering to the Lord is an Old Testament terminology, dating back to when the priests would offer animal sacrifices in anticipation of God's salvation. It was, after all, their Bible at the time since the New Testament was being lived and hadn't been written yet. The New Testament form of ministering to the Lord was the idea of worshiping Him and bringing Him a sacrifice of praise (present your bodies as a "living sacrifice"), rather than an animal sacrifice.

This picture of the early church at worship brings us to the questions of how we pursue worship today. Our desire is the same as theirs, which is to have the presence of God move among us. In order to do that, we need to look at the 3 key elements of Worship.


1. The Ministry of the Living Word - with songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, and manifesting His Word through preaching and teaching.

First, let's take a look at the songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. Many scholars believe that God's intention for His Word was that it not only be spoken or preached among the people, but that it be sung as well. The songs that are written in the book of Psalms are evidence to this, because the songs sung by the early church are now in Scripture for us to read.

We talked in class about the difference between these three types of songs. A "Song" can be equated to a modern worship tune. It generally is sung straight through, with the occasional repeat of certain parts. A "Hymn" is a song that tells a story. It usually has more than one verse, and takes us on a journey through each verse to the end, possibly with a refrain or chorus in between. A "Spiritual Song" is a song that is borne "in the moment". It is something that is put on our hearts by the Holy Spirit at a specific moment in time. Harp and Bowl worship is done this way, where a reader takes a passage of scripture and reads part of it, while singers instrumentalists take it and sing/play it as an offering to the Lord.

The reason we come and sing praises to God is not simply then to have an uplifting of our spirit, to feel better about ourselves, or to prepare our hearts for the preaching. It's not simply something we do to "get to the good stuff".

Colossians 3:16 [NIV] - Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

we need to come to the realization that, by singing these songs that are praises to God based in Scripture (though not necessarily word for word), we are not just revitalizing our joy or recharging our batteries. We are also instilling the Word of God in our hearts as we sing.

No matter the style, whether a chorus, a hymn, or something that is birthed by the Holy Spirit at a particular moment during the service, we pursue God's truth by worshiping Him in song.


Now let's look at opening the Bible itself and receiving a message from the Lord through preaching and teaching.

Titus 1:1-3 [NKJV] - Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but ahs in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior;

Preaching is not separate from worship, but rather an integral part of the pursuit of worship. Each of us may not be pastors or teachers, but we don't have to be in order to understand this. Listening to the teaching of a pastor or leader so that we may learn and apply to our lives what the Scriptures say is an important part of pursuing an authentic worship relationship with God.

It is in these times when the Word is taught with an understanding of the seriousness of the contents that is tempered with a compassion for the audience to which it is being taught that it comes alive.

We talked in class about how this is played out in the church today. There are those that have all the desire and passion in the world, but no Biblical foundation to temper their actions. Those people tend to get an idea, run in a direction, and ultimately crash and burn while taking a few other people with them. Then there are those that choose to come in and gain all kinds of Biblical knowledge, but have absolutely no desire to impart that wisdom to others. Both are self-destructive for the church as a whole, and neither are healthy. It takes a balance of both to make ministry effective.

There will be times that the Word will cause someone to make a course correction in their lives. There will be times that the Word will bring a revelation or epiphany to someone in need of a word from the Lord. There will be times when the Word will comfort someone who is going through a difficult time, and times when the Word will uplift someone who is seeing the blessings of God in their life. It is only when the Word is taught and preached with that understanding and compassion when the underlying theme is the mercy, grace, and truth of God, that these moments of clarity can be fully realized by those who are pursuing that authentic worship relationship.

Isaiah 40:1-2 [NIV] - Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

We see the ultimate realization of the Word being preached and taught when, through the birth of Christ, the Word became flesh.

John 1:1-2, 14 [NIV] - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

It is important that the church have a concept of these two, the singing and the preaching of God's Word, coming together as a single expression of pursuing and ministering to the Lord. It is a living ministry that clings to this concept, because it is a true ministry of the Living Word.


2. The Worship of the Lamb - Exalting God's holiness, and proclaiming the completed sacrifice.

The word liturgy is a word that describes worship patterns. It has to do with the elements and rituals that we use when we come before the Lord and welcome His presence among us.

This word has been derided and made to be something of an old-fashioned habit in the postmodern church, but the reality is that every church has one! There are elements, whether your church is "high church" or "modern church" that you practice on a weekly basis. These are your liturgy.

In the pursuit of worship, it is the vitality and acceptance of those elements in a congregational setting that can lead people either toward or away from an authentic relationship with Christ.


There is no more common liturgy in the church than the remembrance of what Christ did for all of humanity at the cross. Some common names are Communion, the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist. All of these describe the action of taking bread and juice (or wine) as the sacraments to remember the body broken and the blood poured out for many.

I Corinthians 11:23-26 [NIV] is where Paul outlines how we should remember the sacrifice of our Lord - For I received from the lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he borke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

We follow this liturgy in order to obey what Jesus told the disciples to do in the upper room on the night He was betrayed, as well as to continually proclaim the completed sacrifice that God made for His creation to be reunited with Him.

Regardless of how often this is observed (weekly in the Christian church, monthly in the Baptist church, and on special occasions in the Nazarene church), it is always in appreciation of the sacrifice Christ made for us, and we are all tied together by the common thread of proclaiming glory to Jesus for taking our sin upon Himself.

We see in the book of Revelation the heavenly scene of worship when it comes to this very subject.

Revelation 5:11-12 [NIV] - Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"

We see the word Worthy in this passage, which is derived from the word Worship, or Weorthscipe in the Old English dialect. It means extravagant respect or admiration which we should certainly give to our Lord and Savior.

Psalm 29:1-2 [NIV] - Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones, ascribe the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.

We are to ascribe glory to the Lord, for He is worthy of it.


This exalting of Christ's holiness is a basic principle in worship. We do so for a number of reasons. We exalt Him because He was the pure lamb, sacrificed for our sins and iniquities. We exalt Him because it is through His blood that we are washed clean and made holy in the sight of God. We are made holy because His is holy.

The Bible speaks to how the blood of Christ (and our remembrance of it through the liturgy of Communion) thwarts satan's attempts to turn us toward loving ourselves more than God.

Revelation 12:11 [NKJV] - And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.


We are also called to worship God in the beauty of His holiness, but how many people come to church each week that the last thing they are liable to feel about themselves is beautiful? It can be this way for any reason.

Maybe they have baggage from the way they have been mistreated, brutalized, or devalued by the world. Maybe they were the victim of a scathing comment or an indifferent judgement just that day. People come to gether for worship feeling anything but lovely, and completely aware of the sin in their lives.

If, when they come to worship, all they see and hear is an exposition on the perfection of God in His holiness, and not the direction of God using His holiness to bring us back to Him in an authentic and real worship relationship, then the pursuit of worship has been thwarted in their lives. This is why we exalt God's holiness, and also proclaim the complete sacrifice of Christ on the cross which allows us to shed our sins at the foot of the cross and come into a right worship relationship with Him regardless of how many times we "blow it".


That relationship allows God to give us freedom, and beings a transformation of epic proportions in our lives.

II Corinthians 3:17-19 [NIV] - Now that the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is Spirit.

It is through this process that God pours His "holy" into our "unholy". Think of it like a trip to the dentist. Just as they drill out the decay and death in a tooth and then fill it with a new substance that makes the tooth whole again, God drills out the death and decay in our lives and fills it with Himself to make us whole again.


There is not anything that we need more in the battle against powers and principalities of powers, as the Bible puts it, than a resourcing in knowing how to face the weakness of our own flesh, the weight of our own sins, and the viciousness of the evil one. We overcome through the completed sacrifice through the blood of the Lamb, and through worshiping God in the beauty of His holiness.

Jesus has triumphed, and after we receive Him as our Savior, we can come and continually receive Him and pour His truth into our current circumstances through these liturgies in order to face each day head on.

Through the ministry of the living Word in song and in preaching, and the worship of the Lamb through exaltation and Communion, we see and transformation in our lives as we pursue an authentic worship relationship with He who made us and saves us.

Questions to Ponder:

1. Do I see the music and the preaching portion of worship services as different items, or as two parts of the same collective thought of worship?

2. Is Communion just something I do, or do I believe that it is an important way to obey and continually proclaim Christ's work on the cross?

3. Do I believe that Jesus is deserving of extravagant respect or admiration, and if so, do I actually practice this in my own life?

4. How can I worship God in the beauty of His holiness, and allow Him to pour His "holy" into my "unholy"?