Last week we discovered:
“Praise is for the nature of God, worship is for the presence of God and thanksgiving is for the provision of God,” (Bill Johnson paraphrased).
Praise is the Invitation for the Presence of God.
Praise is the frame in which the picture of worship hangs.
We then briefly discovered five words from the OT about the nature of praise; what praise should look like.
Today we are going to focus on our response to His presence when this becomes tangible. We are going to look briefly at worship.
Basecamp Scripture:
Psalm 95: 1-7: Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. 3 For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
Within this Psalm we have an example of praise extolling God for who He is, thanksgiving, and then worship.
If praise is our invitation for the presence of God, worship is God’s invitation for us to enter His presence.
God is transcendent, above all things.
God is also immanent, close to us.
God is everywhere, equally, at the same time. He is with us even though we may not feel His presence practically. Psalm 139 assures us of this fact:
Psalm 139: 7-12: Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
There are times though when His presence is known to us in a special way.
If praise is our invitation for the presence of God, worship is God’s invitation for us to enter His presence.
Hebrews 4: 14 So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. (NLT)
When we enter the throne room with confidence or boldness this is not down out of anything we have achieved! It is not done with an attitude of piousness or look at me. For when we enter His presence we are confronted with His holiness!
Worship is the Response to His Presence
Worship is about the response to God’s Holy presence. The problem for many Christians is that they do not often enter into this Holy presence and therefore continue sinning, continue to live lacklustre lives, become lukewarm and indifferent to their relationship with God.
If it has been a while we need to pray the prayer that Moses prayed:
Exodus 33: 18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” 19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” 21 Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
We know the typology in use here - Jesus is our rock whom we are hidden in when the glory of God passes by. We are “in Christ,” (1 Cor 1:2).
When was the last time you praised God and then responded to His invitation to enter into His presence? When was the last time you asked God to show you His glory?
You see it is only the Holy presence of God that makes sense of the descriptions of worship in the Old and New Testament. There is, just like praise, a physical aspect to worship. And just like praise these things cannot be conditioned or turned into a simple ritual without His presence.
These are the responses to His holy presence that come from a hear that has been circumcised before God (Romans 2:29).
Let’s look as some definitions:
Definitions of Worship
Barak - to kneel or bow, to give reverence to God as an act of adoration, implies a continual conscious giving place to God, to be attuned to Him and his presence
Some examples of its use:
Psalm 34:1 I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Psalm 100:4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him, and bless his name.
Psalm 95:6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
I said earlier this cannot be a conditioned or automated thing. What I meant by this was if I asked us all to kneel now before God, it would be a like a school assembly or a ritual. It would be artificial.
We bow the knee or knee because we become attuned to His presence.
We bow before Him as knight of old would bow before their King.
We bow as a sign that our pride has been overwhelmed by His loveliness and holiness.
We bow because of the weight of His presence.
We bow because we are humbled, not humiliated.
We bow because we cannot stand in the presence of such holiness.
Jesus response to this will be to always come alongside us and lift us up.
We may enter God’s presence with boldness but our response when we are there will speak volumes about the heart!
The danger of sharing any of this is that people will start doing these things by rote or to show their spiritual. The truth is God will know if this is the case. Worship is not for show. It is a response to Him which undoes us.
Isaiah 6:1-5: In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
In response to that moment God sends an angel to cleanse Isaiah; for us He sends jesus alongside us, for we are washed in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).
Shachah - to depress or prostrate in homage or loyalty to God, bow down, fall down flat.
Psalm 29:2 Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
Psalm 66:4 All the earth shall worship you and sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to your name." Selah
Psalm 95:6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
Kneeling before God is one thing, a response. Another is to be prostrate - to lie flat before Him
We are not talking here about the response some have to prayer, where they fall under the presence of God. That is a demonstration of God;s power or His work in an individual.
To be shachah, to lie before God face down, is to be so overawed with His presence that we cannot bear to look into His face.
We lie face down out of reverent fear of the Lord. Not fight or flight kind of fear, but because of His presence.
We lie face down because His radiance is too bright for us.
We life face down because our un-repented sin is being operated on!
We lie face down because the weight of His presence is so great, even kneeling is impossible.
“Surely Keith,” I hear you say, “all this is limited to the Old Testament? It cannot apply to us who are saved by grace!”
Let’s look briefly at a couple of NT words for worship:
(http://www.justworship.com/greekpraisewords.php - handy site for Greek praise/worship words).
Kampto - to bend
Romans 14:11 For it is written: "As I live, says the Lord, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God."
Ephesians 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ...
Philippians 2:10 ...that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth...
This is the equivalent of bowing before God we find in the Old Testament. Yes, it is also used of those who will bow before Jesus at the end of all things.
It is still the response of the born again believer, even more so now than before, for it is response to the grace of God, no the judgement of God.
There is a slightly different word used in the NT though:
Proskuneo - to kiss like a dog licking the master's hand, to fawn or crouch, to prostate oneself in homage, to reverence, to adore, worship.
Matthew 28:9 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, "Rejoice!" So they came and held him by the feet and worshiped him.
John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
Revelation 5:14 Then the four living creatures said, "Amen!" And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped him who lives forever and ever.
Note this word includes in one of its derivatives to lie face down!
It also includes the idea of fawning and kissing the hand of the Saviour!
It is the idea of exaggerated affection directed to another.
Wrapping this up:
When will God reveal His presence in such a way to you again? When you seek Him with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29: 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
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