Notes

Contemporary Worship In Lewes
the Essence of Worship
Is there a difference in the form of worship and the essence? Yes, as a matter of known fact, many churches today are struggling with the proper type of worship. So widespread is this issue that lots of churches have divided into two services on Sunday mornings. In a single service the form of worship is traditional music. Only hymns, piano, and organ are used within the other service only contemporary music can be used. One service is youthful, dressed down, loud, and ?rock-and-rollish? music bursts. In another, well you guessed it. The music is softer, older, and church hymnals are accustomed to reflect on what while they're being sung.

I want to talk with you today concerning the essence of worship. Contemporary worship in Lewes of worship is imperative for ?true? worship in the church,Guest Posting or any place you worship God. Jesus predicted the demise of worship form when He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter four. You may remember the scripture, ?Jesus said to her, ?Woman, trust me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem do you want to worship the Father?one hour is coming, and today is, once the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.? (John 4:21; and 23-24 NASB).

The New Testament reveals a stunning silence concerning the outward forms of corporate worship and a radical intensification of worship as an inner, Godward connection with the center. The silence about outward forms is obvious in the fact that the gathered life of the church is never called ?worship? in the brand new Testament. Moreover, the primary Old Testament word for worship is virtually absent from the New Testament letters. Its usage clusters in the Gospels (26 times) and in the Book of Revelation (21 times). But in the Epistles of Paul it occurs only once, namely, in I Corinthians 14:25 where the unbeliever falls down at the energy of prophecy and confesses God is in the assembly. It doesn?t occur at all in the letters of Peter, James, or John.

The Old Testament idea, captured in the Greek word proskuneo, implied a physical falling down in reverence before a visible majesty. This happened as people found the visible, incarnate Christ in the Gospels. And it happened in Revelation because the saints and angels and elders were actually in the current presence of the visible, risen Christ. But in the age between your ascension and the second coming Christ is not visibly here to worship. Therefore, worship is radically internalized and delocalized. In Matthew 15:8-9

Jesus says, ?This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me.? Worship that will not come from the center is vain, empty. It is not authentic worship.

Think about what Paul does to some of the other words related to Old Testament worship. For example, the next most typical word for worship in the Old Testament (after proskuneo) may be the word latreup which is usually translated ?serve? as in Exodus 23:24, ?You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them? (NASB). When Paul uses this word for Christian worship, he goes out of his solution to make sure that we realize he means not a localized or outward form for worship practice but a nonlocallized, spiritual experience. Actually, he takes it so far as to treat virtually all of life as worship when lived in the proper spirit. Here?s another example, in Romans 1:9 he says, ?I serve [or worship] [God] with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.? And in Philippians 3:3, Paul says that true Christians ?worship? [God] in the Spirit of God?and put no confidence in the flesh? (NASB). On the other hand he says in Romans 12:1, for Christians to ?present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.? Paul sees most of life and ministry as an expression of that inner experience of worship.

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