AcceptableWorship-Is?

Acceptable Worship Is?

Quote Raymond Rotlund: Isaiah points the way out of our wars into God’s peace by helping us think in God’s categories. His categories are not traditional versus contemporary worship but, more profoundly, acceptable versus unacceptable worship.
     Isaiah 1:10–20 is about two things at once: worship and repentance. In essence, God puts them together this way: “I want you to repent of your worship. Your worship is unacceptable unless it is the overflow of repentance.”

What is repentance?Repentance is not morbid introspection. It is not self-punishment. True repentance is a privilege, given by the Holy Spirit, opening our eyes not only to how costly our sins are but, more searchingly, how evil our sins are. Repentance is not afraid of wholesome self-suspicion, because it feels an urgency to be right with God at any cost. Repentance is a power giving us traction for newness of life. It isn’t piecemeal or selective, doctoring up this problem or that. As Martin Luther taught in the first of his 95 Theses, “The whole life of believers should be penitence.” Repentance is an honest new self renouncing the shifty old self. And, as Isaiah teaches here, repentance turns from mere forms of worship, whatever they are, to authenticity with God.

Isaiah chapter 1 is holding before us a mirror, so that we can see ourselves more realistically. The rest of the book shows how God saves people like us, so that we become the New Jerusalem. But Isaiah begins the good news of the gospel with the bad news of the gospel, because it’s when we place ourselves under God’s judgment that we experience his salvation.

Just as chapter 1 introduces the book, verse 2 sets the tone for that chapter: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.” The verb “rebelled” also appears in the last verse of the book (66:24). The whole prophecy is framed within these two appearances of “rebelled.” Rebellion against God is our problem. But God saves rebels. And true worship is rebels like us waving the white flag of surrender before our rightful Lord in repentance.

Isaiah is portraying God’s uncomprehending people. Now he exposes the hypocrisy of their worship. His analysis takes four steps: confrontation (1:10), accusation (1:11–15), invitation (1:16–18), decision (1:19, 20).

Zephaniah 2:8-11  –   To some extent, this was fulfilled in the Judaism of the Diaspora, when Gentiles worshiped the Lord as God-fearers or proselytes in their local synagogues. Yet Zephaniah goes beyond the expectation of the central and universal worship of Yahweh. He anticipates Jesus’s teaching that acceptable worship may take place wherever God’s people assemble and worship him in spirit and truth (John 4:23).

John 4:23– ²³ 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.

–          REVERENCEClosely related to honor and respect and often translating the Hebrew and Greek words for “fear,” reverence is directed primarily toward the sacred or divine, such as God’s sanctuary (Lev. 19:30; 26:2), the temple (Ps. 5:7), God’s name (Rev. 11:18), God himself (Dan. 6:26; Mal. 2:5), and his messengers, the angel of the Lord (Josh. 5:14), and Peter (Acts 10:25). Reverence for God motivates behavior that honors him, such as just governance (Neh. 5:15), mutual submission (Eph. 5:21), purity (2 Cor. 7:1), and obedience (Col. 3:22). It is an attitude of acceptable worship (Heb. 12:28), connected with humility (Jer. 44:10), which may win over unbelievers (1 Pet. 3:2).

   Hebrews 12:28 -29:  ²⁸ Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, ²⁹ for our God is a consuming fire.

Following are Excerpts from “The Beauty of Holiness” By Barrett, MP

Acceptable worship flows from the true knowledge of God and follows His revealed will. Worship is holy service rendered to the Lord, not an occasion adapted to the likes and dislikes of would-be worshippers.^[1]

It is sobering to realize that God regards hypocritical and heartless worship of Himself to be just as repugnant and loathsome as the worship of false gods.Even the hands spread so diligently in prayer only pretended piety because the Lord saw the hands as dripping with the guilt of violence (i.e., full of blood, verse 15). Orthodoxy (right doctrine) and orthopraxis (right practice)—though essential elements—are not the sum total of genuine religion and acceptable worship.

The redeemed not only have a special and happy duty to worship the Lord;they alone worship on the ground of the fundamental criterion for true and acceptable worship—the mediation of Jesus Christ… True religion with its corresponding true worship is exclusively narrow. Redemption ground is the only ground on which and from which true worship can be offered.

I was at a conference recently where a colleague from another conservative institution read a paper on worship. He made the insightful observation that much of what passes for traditional worship in many fundamentalist churches today is the consequence of having brought the evangelistic tent-meetings of a hundred fifty years ago inside the church. I think he’s right. As a result, the focus of church services shifted from worship to motivational messages invariably concluding with altar calls for immediate decisions. So traditional has this become to some that even to alter the altar call is to be suspected of disobedience to the Great Commission. But that’s not the way it used to be.

So the criterion for conducting or evaluating worship cannot be in terms of tradition. I know this is going to sound simplistically pious, but the only legitimate criterion for evaluating and determining worship is the Scripture, our only rule for faith and practice. If being biblical is the standard of worship, then there may even be cherished aspects of “traditional worship” that have to be adjusted or abandoned. Being biblical means having the resolve to either change or not change depending on what the Bible says. That’s why The Beauty of Holiness is subtitled A Guide to Biblical Worship, not necessarily traditional worship.

So while admitting that I have not addressed important issues that beg for answers, I offer what I believe are foundational principles extracted from the Scripture to guide toward biblical worship. This is a guide to worship, not a manual. If I have proposed any overarching rule to follow, it is that worship is all about God. Decisions, therefore, about how to worship Him are based not on personal preferences but on God’s own Word that prescribes and describes what pleases Him. Worship is not entertainment for spectators; it is sacred service rendered to the Lord. It is true that the Scripture orders us to clap our hands (Psalm 47:1). But whatever our cultural and temporal equivalent of that may be, I guarantee you that it has nothing to do with offering applause to a singer or any other musician for some performance. Worship elevates the Lord; it never spotlights a “worship leader,” whatever that means. Interestingly, there is a whole bank of worship words in the Bible, all of which focus on some attitude, posture, or activity, but the Hebrew word in the Old Testament and the Greek word in the New Testament most often translated “worship” both have the essential component of bowing down or showing obeisance. In true worship, all deference and homage are humbly directed to God. Without reverence, a happy gathering may be possible, but biblical worship is not. Acceptable worship always flows from a true knowledge of God that always generates a genuine fear of Him that always follows His revealed will.

Logically, we are to worship the Lord because He deserves it. His infinite worth is the mandate for worship (the glory due His name). Practically, we are to worship by bowing down in the beauty of holiness. To worship in holy beauty requires a behavior and demeanor distinct from worldly behavior and practices. The place and exercise of worship must be uniquely special. Introducing worldly elements into worship in order to attract worshippers defies what worship is all about. May God give us all the courage and resolve to let the Bible be our guide and not to be afraid to obey it, regardless of how out of sync it may put us either with contemporary or with traditional perversions of worship.