MEANING OF WORSHIP

 Rev. 4:1-11 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying. ”Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.” Immediately, I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And he who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones, I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes, and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightning, thundering, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. Before the throne there was a sea of glass like crystal. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. The four living creatures each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “You are worthy, O Lord to receive glory and honor and power. For You created all things and by Your will they exist and were created.”

As we look at understanding worship we need to define what worship is in order to get  understanding of it.

Webster’s Dictionary defines worship as 1. A service or rite showing reverence for a deity. 2. Intense love or admiration. 3. In Britain a title or honor addressing Magistrates.

Lets look at what the bible says about worship. You will notice that most of the definitions touch on some of the things that we do and some of the things that God expects.

In the book of John, Chapter 4, Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well and says to her in verse 21 … ”Woman believe Me the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.   

Here Jesus is speaking about the importance of worship to God the Father. It is so important that He seeks people who worship Him. We all consider Sunday a day we worship the Lord giving God glory and adoration to His name. But there is something more to worship.

In the book of Daniel chapter 3, the first word for worship in Hebrew is the word segad. It means to bow down before Him. Dan. 3:3 All the officials of the provinces gathered together for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then a herald cried aloud “To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations and languages that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.  

In the entire book of Daniel the word worship is the word segad. 

Verse 6 and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

The Hebrew word for worship of God that carries the fullness of God’s expectation and desire is the word shachah.  The Greek word for worship is the word proskuneo. And both of them carry the meaning of bowing down. But it carries a greater meaning.. We can see that there are other words that talk about bowing down. If the words shachah and proskuneo mean to bow down and that is all God desires then He could have used the word segad instead of using the special words shachah and proskuneo. The word segad means to bow down and pay homage to a dignitary or somebody higher than you. And it may not include your heart. It really only refers to your body posture. I am sure a lot of people in Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom didn’t really want to bow before all those idols that he commanded. Some of them may have done it unwillingly. But most of them did it out of fear. Those that do not bow down will be burned. Their hearts are not involved in that act of bowing down.

We have the story in Dan. 3 where music was played and everyone had to bow. There were three who would not bow, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.. When the king gave them another chance, they still would not bow. In the whole chapter, the word used is segad. Please note that the word segad is never used in a true sense of worship of our God. This tells us that God doesn’t  want our outward form of worship, or posture alone.  

 There is a word for worship in the book of Jeremiah, Chapter 44:19 it is the Hebrew word atsab.  The women also said, “And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes for her, to worship (atsab) her, and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ permission?”

This is the worldly form of worship. And the word atsab is to make some object an idol and to burn incense or give offerings. This is animism. Animism is the worship of objects, stones and trees. The use of this word usually is regarding altars. The altars in Genesis are not the same altars that we see today. The altars made then were of plain stones to make blood sacrifices. But here it is an altar to make a material object god, as if the object has spiritual power. People worshipped all kinds of things. They worshipped the sun, the moon and trees. Atsab worship employs things. The worship includes the use of say an offering of incense or food.  

We note that tithes and offerings are a part of our worship. However they are not our worship. Some believe that worshipping God means to give Him something. If God is your first love you will want to give Him your life. The essence of worship unfortunately is not that. I give God my life and I bring to God my tithes and offerings because I love Him. It is the result of my worship. It is not the method I use to worship Him; with tithes and offerings. In other words, God doesn’t want a single cent from us. He wants our lives.  When we give Him our lives He becomes our Lord and we automatically surrender our tithes and our offerings to Him. It is the result or consequence of our relationship with God. However, atsab worship builds upon sacrifices.

Some Christians believe that the moment you put your face to the ground you are worshipping, you are fulfilling the act of worship by bowing down. There is something deeper in proskuneo and shachah . God is saying to us, “Be still and know that I am God.”

The word abad means to serve Him. In II Kings 10., the word abad is used to refer to Baal worshippers. Verse 21 Then Jehu sent throughout all Israel; and all the worshippers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left who did not come. Verse 22 Bring out vestments for all the worshippers of Baal.  The full essence of the word abad means to serve. What is the definition of worship in our life? Does it only mean to bow down? Does it mean that we have to give Him something? Or does it mean that our worshipping is only when we are serving Him?  God wants shachah worship bowing down and serving with Love.  Abad worship is the kind that only dwells in service. Doing something all the time. Whereas atsab is giving something. You’ll notice that these definitions have reference to what is prevailing in the world. You can actually be a Christian without God asking anything of you. All He requires is that you give Him time to be alone with you. That can be worship. It is not service alone.

 Based on what we have covered so far if your definition of worship is to bow down before God, it is wrong because that is segad not shachah. If your definition of worship is to give God something, praise, songs, that will also be wrong. That is atsab. If your definition of worship is to serve Him with all your heart, that still isn’t correct. That is abad. 

In the new Testament we find a secular definition of worship. In Acts 17:23.   There are also others in Acts 17:22… Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious, for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

He found an object of worship. The word worship in Greek is the word eusebeo not the word proskuneo.  You can define eusebeo as reverential fear. That is the way the Greek fellows were in Acts 17. They have many idols in the temple. Their gods from Greek mythology. The strange thing is that as Paul was looking at all these idols, they did not affect him at all. Because he knew that greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world. In the pagan world, or even today, people become afraid of pagan rites…like voodoo. They lack confidence in their God.  

When Howard Carter and Lester Sumrall went to China in their early journeys, they slept in the temple. The places they went didn’t even have hotels or inns and the only place open was a temple. While they slept there, they didn’t get demon oppressed.  We believe in the living God who created the heaven and the earth. We believe  we have found Him who controls the universe. Yet we are afraid of  a mere demon. Paul was right there looking around. Then he noticed that these people were afraid. They built an altar to an unknown god, just in case there was one they had missed. They went so far as to leave the altar empty because they didn’t know how to worship that god or even who he was. And Paul said, “I have come to tell you about this unknown God.” He said this unknown God is the main God that we all should worship. Eusebeo is a worship based on fear. If I don’t worship him, he will punish me. Most of traditional worship is based on fear. Even today I hear people say things like, “If I don’t do what the bible says, God will break my legs or something.”   Eusebeo is based on fear. If I don’t worship God, something bad is going to happen. We only have to look at the non-Christian culture to see Eusebeo in practice.   

That element is still in the Christian heart and mind, which is very sad. The principle is still there and Christians can end their worship with eusebeo

 How do we do that? If I don’t worship God something bad is going to happen to me. If I don’t say my prayers, something bad is going to happen to me. We know that the blessing of God comes when we obey Him.  After we put  this negative aspect of worship into action and the bad thing does happen, we say, “I knew it would happen.” And in fact, your faith gets so built up in the wrong sense that if you didn’t worship Him that day you would expect something bad to happen. That is eusebeo worship.

God doesn’t use fear to force us to worship Him because our worship would not be true. If He had wanted us to worship Him that way, He could have easily done it by making all the angels appear with whips and swords. Everyone would worship God because one angel is able to  slay a whole army. But that is not the worship He wants. That image of God is  to fear the big man upstairs with a whip. Every time you do something wrong you get the whip. “We better worship Him or else judgment will come.”  That is unscriptural. Do not worship God to avoid wrong things happening to you. That is eusebeo worship.

In Acts 17 verse 25 there is another word that is not normally translated worship but there is no other way the translators could have translated it. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. The word here is a word that’s seldom translated worship. It’s the word therapeuo. From this word we get the word therapy. In essence, it means healing, wholeness and also means a kind of service. But it also means something else. Therapeuo speaks about worshipping God because of His  therapeutic value.In other words we take worship like a medicine. “What can God do for us? Worship Him because He can do this and that for you.” That’s the opposite of eusebeo worship. Earlier we saw in eusebeo worship, you worship Him so that He won’t do something. Now we go to the other extreme and say, “Worship Him so that He can do something.” This kind of worship still isn’t right. We worship Him because of the therapeutic value of worship. We get something out of it. We get healing, we get blessing, we get a tangible feeling of Him, we get encouraged. Yet, all those things happen when you really worship. But when we worship because of that it is not proskuneo but it is therapeuo, which is still not the essence of what He wants.

More wrong forms of worship are found in Colossians 2:18 We are trying to define worship and so we are looking all the wrong definitions the bible gives on worship. There is only one English word for worship but there are many Hebrew words and Greek words that talk about the wrong kind of worship.  Verse 18 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. The word worship here is not proskuneo but it’s the word threskeia. Threskeia worship is defined to be religious observance or being religious about something. Sadly, that is not only true about non-Christians but even Christianity ends up with rituals that are not worship. A lot of traditional churches have traditional rites. This is threskeia worship where we follow some prescribed order in a bulletin - congregations bow down, congregation stand, sing hymn no. 288, Amazing Grace. Someone who may not even be a worshipper of God plans the whole service beforehand in the church office. This can be classified as Christian ritual and some churches call it worship. Today in the praise and worship movement there is a tendency to revise some of these rituals. But if all that is done is threskeia, it is still considered a ritual worship. We go through the motions and we call it worship.

But even some Charismatics are in danger of developing Charismatic ritual. Recently I was reading about an evangelist who was a member of an out going Charismatic church. The pastor came under the influence of a prophet who was every extreme. The pastor looked to the prophet as the father figure. And the church began to take on a very hard and judgmental approach just like that prophet. The Evangelist member telling the story was thinking of leaving the church, which was his base of operations. I believe in dancing before the Lord. I believe in uninhibited praise. But never do we force anyone to do it. When something is forced on people, it becomes a ritual. Now being a leader is different. If I am a preacher, it is demanded of me that I know the Word and prepare myself to give the Word. If I am a worship leader, it is demanded of me that I must worship with my spirit, my soul and my body. But for the people who come as a whole there is no such thing as any ritual. Even Charismatics can have their own ritual. It’s Time to sing in tongues. Time to clap hands. Anything can become ritual. Threskeia worship is ritualistic worship. Clapping, dancing, singing and praising in tongues can happen in true worship but when they are structured rigidly instead of being open to the Holy Spirit then it becomes mechanical, empty and wrong.

Another form of erroneous worship is found in the book of Acts 16:14 Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God. The word worship is the word sebazo. And it means to venerate. To venerate is to pay homage and respect to. Now Lydia in Acts 16:14 has not come to know Jesus yet. But she has a deep respect for God in her heart. She would not take God’s name in vain. She would not loosely make a joke about God, it is disrespectful. Sebazo means that we respect God.

Some need to have sebazo or respect for God because they don’t have respect for God in their reference to God in conversation and daily life

 This is why those who have been and returned from heaven talk about a place where angels teach you the proper protocol of how to enter God’s presence. We talk about entering His gates with thanksgiving; enter His court with praise. Yet there is more there. Gabriel doesn’t speak irreverently about God. Certainly, the four creatures around the throne don’t talk that way. They don’t say, “Hey God,” they say, “Holy, holy, holy.” We need sebazo to a certain extent. Sebazo helped Lydia to enter into the things of God. However, respect alone is not good enough. It didn’t bring Lydia to salvation. Respect for God in your life will build a form of devoutness and outward holiness but in itself it is not good enough.

Now ,the word shachah in Hebrew and proskeuneo in the Greek and the full meaning of what this worship is. In Gen.22:5 ninty-nine times the word shachah has been translated as worship. And Abraham said to his young men. “Stay here with the donkey, the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.” The word here used is the word shachah, which means to bow down,yourself. But it is different from segad.  Segad means to bow down. Shachah means to bow down yourself. Remember Daniel chapter 3?  it looks like the people bowed down themselves but they did not. They were bowing down under threat for life. Bow or die so they bow. In this instance shachah is God saying: Abraham give me your son, and Abraham took the son himself; Abraham bound the son himself; Abraham sought to sacrifice the son himself. God never did it for him. He himself bowed down before God.

II Chron. 29:30 Moreover King Hezekiah and the leaders commanded the Levites to sing praise to the Lord with words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed their heads and worshiped (shachah).  If shachah means bowing the head alone why didn’t it just say and shachah. But it says, “..and they bowed their heads and shachah.” It is because the word shachah speaks of something deeper. As I continuously search for the meaning of worship I come to one conclusion. Worship means to humble ourselves before God.

Worship does not mean all those things that we do. Worship is in our heart. You could do segad, you could bow down and your heart could still have pride. You could atsab or give something like the Pharisees and the Sadducees who gave things to the temple but they have pride in their hearts. You could be very religious about things like the Sadducees and active about it but they have pride in what they believe. So the Sadducees and Pharisees are always quarrelling. The essence of the worship of God is a humble heart. Its not just what you say. You can give God your tithes of a million dollars and it means nothing if your heart is proud - there is no worship.  You can sing the loudest, play musicical instruments most skillfully but if there is no humility in your heart, there is no worship. I constantly checked on the meaning of worship as I looked at all the Hebrew words in worship. I prayed to God, “Lord, surely shachah means more than that.” And I began to realize why the Father seeks such worshippers. He looks for a heart that humbles before Him. It is not just ritualistic worship threskeia. People who have ritual are proud of their ritual. They wear special robes in worship and they take pride in it. Worship has disappeared. All you have is threskeia.  The essence of true worship is a humble heart. Remember a broken and a contrite spirit He will not reject.

Notice in Isa. 64:4 the Word says: For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear nor has the eyes seen any God besides You. Who acts for the one who waits for Him. Isa. 66:1 Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is My throne. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made and all those things exist.” Says the Lord. “But on this one will I look. On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at My word.”

The essence and the meaning of worship is a humble heart. There is a Hebrew word and a Greek word for humble but shachah is an inward condition of the heart. When I began to research into the meaning of pride and humility in the bible, I found that God always opposes pride. I Peter 5:5 Likewise you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud.” God did not ignore them. We think that God ignores the proud and blesses the humble. He attacks, judges, pulls down, tears down, removes and resists the proud. Pride is the very opposite of the essence of worship. And our God will have no other gods before Him.

Do you notice that pride leads to self-worship? Nebuchadnezzar looked over his hanging garden. In spite of the warning from Daniel and a warning from a dream he looked at his hanging garden and said, “Didn’t “I” build all these?” A voice from heaven judged him and declared, “You will be turned into a beast and driven out to eat grass until you know that there is a God in heaven.” God opposes, tears down, removes and resists pride. But he loves to see people bowing down in their heart; they are contrite and they say, “God, we worship You.” The essence of worship is a humble heart.

In Matt. 2. the Greek definition of proskeuneo is to kiss toward but look at it very carefully and you see the depths that are in line with shachah.  Verse 9 When they heard the king they departed and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him gold, frankincense and myrrh.

They gave gifts to Him but that was the result of the worship. We get confused between the result of worship and the essence of worship. You can give those gifts but if those gifts come from pride, worship is automatically gone. Although worship involves giving ourselves to God. You can sing onto God and singing is part of worship but if it is not from a humble heart, worship disappears from the scene. The essence of it is humility. If humility is there, all those giving, singing and dancing are correct. They are kings from the East and they have come to look for the king of the Jews. And He was just a child. Look at such humility when they fell down and they bowed down before Him. Proskuneo is not just kissing towards. You are at the feet of Jesus kissing His feet recognizing that you are zero. I mean that is the feeling you will have if you are kissing somebody’s feet. Kissing on the toes and feet is a most humiliating act.   

In Matt. 8:5 Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum a centurion came to Him pleading with Him saying ”Lord my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented, And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.

In cross-references, you will find that the centurion was worshipful of Jesus.. Look at his heart not at what he did. He considered himself unworthy when compared to God. We are speaking about understanding how to humble ourselves before God and thus have true worship so that all the other consequences of our worship will be accepted before God. Proskuneo speaks about the humbling of our heart, our mind, of bending  our wills to God. That is the meaning and definition of worship.

Remember the parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and the publican. They came to the temple and one was boasting, “Lord, I have done this, I have done that.” The other was beating his chest and said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus’ question was, “Who do you think went out justified?” It was the publican. Two men went to the temple. One humbled himself before God and got touched. The other did not. Thank God for every other aspect of worship that we have. But the true essence of worship has to do with our heart. Is it contrite and humble before God?