Worship at the Feet of Jesus

Our dear Lisa is taking a blogging sabbatical this month. While we miss her tremendously, we're pleased to have a couple of friends contributing in her spot. Today's guest is Diana Lovegrove. We're so thankful to have her join us as we continue to discuss worship.

The risen, victorious Jesus comes to His disciples and says “Greetings.” What is their response?

“They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him.”

(Matthew 28:9).

Note, they are not scrabbling in the dirt at His feet. They clasped His feet. They gripped, and clung onto, His feet. Is this something we have done in our worship of Him?

We have a beautiful picture of this in the story of Ruth. Her mother-in-law Naomi, says to her ““My daughter, should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?” (Ruth 3:1) To find rest and provision, she points Ruth to her Kinsman-Redeemer, and tells her “go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.” (Ruth 3:4). Uncover his feet, lie down at his feet. Have we uncovered the feet of Jesus? Have we lain down at His uncovered feet and waited for Him to tell us what to do?

These feet...feet of which we first read in Genesis 3:15…where we find out that His heels will be bruised by Satan. We read in Psalm 22:16 that His feet will be pierced. We read in Revelation 1:15 that the feet of the risen, victorious, ascended Jesus are “like burnished bronze,refined in a furnace”. Does this not remind us of the brazen altar in the tabernacle, with its grate where the fierce fire of the Lord would burn up the sacrifice to enable the worshippers to be put right with God? But was it not bronze which was able to withstand the fiery judgement and wrath of the Lord when the rebels brought their own incense before the Lord (see Numbers 16:35-39)? Does this not all point to the cross and the way in which He suffered for our iniquities –it is because of our sin that these feet have suffered, it is because of our sin that these feet have been bruised and pierced, it is because of our sin that these feet have been through the fires of the furnace of God’s wrath.

Oh, clasp these feet and weep, you who would worship Him! Cover them with your tears! Then wipe His feet with your hair. Wipe the tears away. For He was not defeated by the sacrifice He made -look, He is robed in splendour, and strides forward in the greatness of His strength! “It is I, proclaiming victory, mighty to save!” (Isa 63:1). Replace your tears with kisses: “Kiss the Son!” (Psalm 2:12). And then pour out your perfume on His feet and fill the room with its beautiful fragrance – the perfume He has given – the prayers of the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express – these prayers which rise like incense before Him.

Now that you have uncovered His feet, wait and He will tell you what to do. Listen: “Your sins are forgiven…Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:48,50). Allow Him to wash your feet – yes, Him, your Creator! – allow Him close enough to wash your feet that you might not only be forgiven, but cleansed. Allow His Spirit to come into you and raise you to your feet, and you will find that He makes your feet like the feet of a deer, enabling you to stand on the heights. Then allow Him to put sandals on your feet that you might be ready to go forth and proclaim the full gospel truth as He wills. And you will find that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet – as He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet, when they will become the footstool for these most precious of feet.

Diana lives in England with her husband and their 8-year-old son. A part-time bookkeeper, tea is her drink of choice (PG Tips, hot), and she loves nothing better than when her guitar is in her hands so she can praise her God. She loves writing, and deep one-on-one chats with close friends. She blogs at Waiting for our Blessed Hope.

Worship in the Word

I was church-less by choice for seven years. Although God was sovereign over that bad decision, it was a very unhealthy place to be. When the bottom fell out of my life, I could barely stand because I was so spiritually malnourished. I needed the local church.

I still remember the day I visited the church I now call home. It was the last Sunday in 2007. There weren't many people. I can't recall what we sang, but I clearly remember the sermon on Isaiah 6:1-6. It was the first solid spiritual meal I had "eaten" in a long time. I was sad, scared, and dreading what 2008 would bring, but the pastor's simple words turned my gaze away from my circumstances to God in His majesty and glory. I went home and cried out of relief and gratitude to the Lord for ending my self-imposed fast.

You may be thinking, "Why is she writing about a comforting sermon when the topic is worship?" As both Kim and Rebecca have written, worship involves the revelation of God in His Word. Therefore, sound preaching and worship go hand in hand.

From John MacArthur:

Many people see preaching and worship as two distinct aspects of the church service, as if preaching has nothing to do with worship and vice versa. But that is an erroneous concept. The ministry of the Word is the platform on which all genuine worship is built. [1]

Genuine worship is a response to divine truth... Real worship acknowledges God as He has revealed himself in His Word... Worship means ascribing glory to Him because of these truths. It means adoring Him for who He is, for what He has done, and for what he has promised. It must therefore be a response to the truth that He has revealed about Himself. Such worship cannot rise out of a vacuum. It is prompted and vitalized by the objective truth of the Word. [2]

In the past, I thought worship consisted only of singing and offering prayers of praise. Preaching, on the other hand, wasn't on the same level. In my opinion, you just sat, listened, and did nothing whereas you could participate in the singing. But I think quite differently today. A godly response to sound teaching is anything but passive. The greatest commandment is: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matt. 22:37) I believe all those aspects of loving God are present when we receive and respond to the ministry of the Word.

How many times have you heard the Scriptures explained, and you've seen something new about Christ you never saw before? Didn't it stir your "religious affections" and cause your heart to well up with love for your Savior?

Do you remember the time before you were a Christian when you had no interest in the Word? It was a closed book as far as you were concerned. But because of Christ, the veil that was over our hearts has been taken away. Our minds are no longer darkened. Our ears aren't stopped. With unveiled faces, we are able to behold the glory of the Lord in His Word. By the Holy Spirit, this leads to renewed minds and transformed lives that can be offered to God as spiritual worship.  (2 Cor. 3:12-18, Rom. 12:1-2)

So this coming Sunday as I listen to the preaching of the Word, I pray that I would get a greater glimpse of who God is. And I pray that it would result in more love and a changed life for His praise and glory.

I hope you will be encouraged to pray the same way.

                                                                                                                        
1. Worship: The Ultimate Priority, John MacArthur, Moody Press, 2012, pg. 35.
2. Ibid.pg. 37.

Note: The post title is taken from my church's bulletin. Worship in the Word is the heading over the sermon title. I think it is very appropriate.

Worship Him Well

In January my family embarked upon a search for a new church home. We were leaving the comfort of our small-ish, country-ish, traditional-ish church, and we knew that the churches we planned to visit would be different from what we had grown accustomed to. Even knowing that, I wasn't quite prepared for what we encountered.

One church we visited had just moved into a new multipurpose worship center configured much like a theater - dark with a tall stage running across the front. A balcony houses more seating and a coffee bar. The choir stands on risers that remind me of elementary school pageants and school portraits. The stage is set with a full drum set encased in glass and men playing guitars, complete with amplifiers and headphones. Song lyrics stretch out across two large screens on either side of the stage.

Another church had better lighting and a smaller stage. There were no headphones, jeans, or coffee bar in sight. The choir chairs remained empty most Sundays. The tambourine and wooden shaker were sometimes drowned out by guitar solos worthy of a 1970s rock concert.

In all fairness, the music at both churches was theologically sound. Yet even with all the contemporary accoutrements, I left each service asking myself if I had worshiped the Lord well. Had I gazed upon His beauty in the way David meant when he penned Psalm 27?

One thing have I asked of the Lord,
    that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
    and to inquire in his temple.

~Psalm 27:4 (ESV)

I knew the answer. I had been too distracted by the entertainment to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.  I wondered if I was the only one.

Many Christians think of worship as simply the music portion of the service. While that is not the case, music does have the unique task of preparing our hearts to receive the Word. Worship music that is theologically incorrect or played in a way that draws attention to man rather than God is a detriment to the spirit of our worship; such music encourages us to think less of God and more of ourselves.

The Christian's instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God. But this is knowledge which Christians today largely lack: and that is one reason why our faith is so feeble and our worship so flabby. We are modern people, and modern people, though they cherish great thoughts of themselves, have as a rule small thoughts of God. When the person in the church, let alone the person in the street, uses the word God, the thought is rarely of divine majesty. Today vast stress is laid on the thought that God is personal, but this truth is so stated as to leave the impression that God is a person of the same sort as we are - weak, inadequate, ineffective, a little pathetic. But this is not the God of the Bible! He is eternal, infinite, and almighty. He has us in his hands; we never have him in ours. In all its constant stress on the reality of God's personal concern for his people, and on the gentleness, tenderness, sympathy, patience and yearning compassion that he shows toward them, the Bible never lets us lose sight of his majesty and his unlimited dominion over all his creatures.

~J.I. Packer, Knowing God, (p. 83)

The casual, coffee house mentality that has invaded the church has rendered the god worshiped there hardly recognizable as the God of the Bible. As we continue our series on worship throughout this month, I pray that we will learn to worship the One, True, Holy God - and worship Him well.

In Spirit and Truth

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24, ESV) 

You may recognize these verses as Jesus’ words to the woman at the well. Jesus and the woman are discussing a question of location: Where is the right place to worship God?

“God,” Jesus explains, “is spirit.” This might seem like a non-answer, but it isn’t. If God, as spirit, does not have a physical location, then those who worship him are not required to be at any one physical location to do so. There is no one right place to worship our God who is not himself limited to space. He can be worshipped everywhere.

While there is not one required place to worship God, there are indeed “musts” for our worship. Real worship, Jesus goes on, must be done “in spirit and truth.”

In Spirit 
True worship comes from the spirit. The source is inside us, from the part of us that makes us spiritual beings. Worship “in spirit,” then, requires spiritual life. Only those who have been born again—or born of the Spirit—can worship God. Or to put it another way, only true believers are true worshippers.

Genuine worship is “from the heart,” to use a phrase that is more familiar than “in spirit.” Postures of worship, like bowed head, closed eyes, and raised hands, are not what makes our worship real, nor are other worship rituals—although these may be sincere outward expressions of worship in spirit.

In Truth
Kim touched on what this means in her post introducing the topic of worship. “Fundamental to worship,” she wrote, “is the revelation of God.” And again, “Worship is founded on the knowledge of God.” Worship "in truth" is worship of God as he has revealed himself—as he really is.

Someone who worships in truth gets God right because they know and believe what God says. Essential to worship then, is God's word. An "in truth" worshipper reads and studies the Bible to know what God tells us about himself.

It's in scripture, too, that we come to know the Son who became a human being and dwelt among us in a physical location so we could see God who is spirit. Worship "in truth" focuses on the Son as the ultimate revelation of God—as the ultimate Truth.

And So I Pray

I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t pray. From my time in the church nursery on, I was told I could talk to God anytime I wanted to. But I’ve often been confused about prayer.

In my late teens and early twenties, I thought prayer was something I needed to do to manipulate God. Fueled in part by Frank Peretti novels, I began to feel that God needed my prayers in order to act. If I would have thought this through to its logical conclusion I would have realized the absurdity of it, but apparently I didn’t. It was as if my prayers filled some sort of a tank, and if it finally got full enough, God would be able to move.

When realized that a sovereign God doesn’t need my help (Acts 17:25), it was a great relief. I could rest. I didn’t have to worry about someday hearing about all the things God wanted to accomplish but wasn’t able to because of my prayerlessness. That realization was a needed balm to my weary, fretful soul. But I’m afraid I became too lax in my prayer life, to my own detriment.

We should be careful not to presume that the right doctrine lies in the middle of two extremes, but in this case it does. Or perhaps this is best described as a both/and situation. Is God sovereign and able to do as he wishes without our help? Yes. Does God move in response to our prayers? Yes.

I still can’t explain how a sovereign God works through our prayers, but he does. He wants to hear our prayers, and he listens to us. I could spend a lifetime (and beyond) trying to plumb the depths of this glorious truth and never get to the bottom of it. The God who knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), works all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11) for my good and his glory (Romans 8:28). And one of the means he accomplishes this is through my prayers.

I have seen some wonderful answers to prayer in the last year or so. I have watched God move in situations that I had given up as hopeless. I have seen God provide in ways that I never could have predicted.

But still my heart is heavy. We sin against each other and hurt each other. People receive devastating medical diagnoses. The mountains and obstacles often seem so very tall compared to our feeble abilities.

And so I pray. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, and I don’t know if it will be to my liking, but I know God will move in his time and in his way. For my good and his glory.