I would like to begin this article by calling your attention to something very interesting. The New Testament begins, or at least speaks very early on, and ends, by talking about the same thing.  About worship. And very specifically, it begins and ends with warnings about false worship

Early in the book of Matthew, in Chapter 4, Satan tries to get Jesus to worship him, and Jesus has this to say:

Mat 4:10  Then Jesus said^ to him, "Begone, Satan! For it is written, 'YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

At the other end of your New Testament, when the apostle John attempts to worship an angel of the Lord, he is told  basically the same thing that Jesus told Satan:

Rev 22:9  And he said^ to me, "Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book; worship God."

The biblical instructions and the biblical warnings regarding worship are many, they are serious, and they are firm. From the beginning of the New Testament to the end of the New Testament we learn about the importance of worship, and about the seriousness of false worship. Clearly, this message is laid out in the Old Testament as well, although the manner of worship was different then.  In either testament, you just don't mess around with worship. You don't take it lightly, and you don't alter it. Worship is serious business, and worship is important. True worship is about not what pleases you and me, it’s about what pleases God. At the same time, worship is also something that should bring God, and the man who offers it, joy and closer fellowship. But we must examine the scriptures, and we must examine ourselves, and consider just what acceptable worship is, and is not.

Let’s first consider unacceptable worship. What kind of worship is unacceptable to God?

IGNORANT WORSHIP

Sometimes men try to worship without knowing what they are doing. Sometimes men try to worship without knowing whom they are worshipping. And sometimes men try to worship without knowing how they are supposed to be worshipping. All of those situations are dangerous. They are all issues of ignorant worship. A prime example of this sort of misguided worshiped can be found in Acts 17. In this text the apostle Paul finds men in Athens worshipping every kind of god they could invent and they tried to make sure they covered every god they could possibly imagine. But just in case they missed one, they erected an idol to the unknown god and they tried to worship this unknown god, without knowing a thing about him, or how to worship him. Listen to what Paul says about this in v23:

Acts 17:23  "For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

This is ignorant worship. They did not know whom to worship, nor did they know how to worship, and Paul says, you need to learn about the God you know nothing about. You need to turn your ignorance into knowledge and understand who God is, and how he is to be worshipped.

Now is this of any concern or relevance to men today? Very much so. Idolatry in the sense that Paul encountered in the 1st century may not be nearly as common in our own society, but confusion regarding God, and spirituality, and worship abound just as much as ever. And understand, it is a confusion of choice. Men choose confusion over knowledge. And it is a choice because it doesn’t have to be so. We have God’s word, and God's word tells us about God. And God's word tells us about worship, and how to worship. But when men fail to read God's word and pay attention to it they end up worshipping in ignorance. They end up worshipping in confusion. And some may delight in that, others may do so grudgingly, but whatever the reason, it does not please God.

FALSE WORSHIP

There is a worship, whether it is based on ignorance or not, that is false. This is a worship that worships the wrong thing, like John trying to worship the angel as we saw in the book of Revelation. Or this may be a worship that worships in the wrong manner, doing things God has not instructed in worship. Or this may be a worship that is done for the wrong reasons, or with the wrong heart. Whatever the details, it is a worship that is false, and that does not please God.

Listen to some things Paul says along these lines in Colossians 2.

Col 2:18  Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,

Col 2:23  These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Paul refers here to those involved in false religion and false worship. What kinds of things are they doing?  They worship angels.,They try to teach others based on visions they claim to have seen. They are in fact very proud of themselves and what they think they are doing, and what they do seems to have the appearance of wisdom. This is false Paul says. A false, misguided worship. This is a self-made religion. This is man's attempt to please himself, through his own ideas of worshipping God or something else, but it is false, and does not please God. And be careful Paul says, that you don't get caught up in that sort of thing.

VAIN WORSHIP

This is a worship that is empty, and serves no purpose

This is a worship that man may think is really grand, but before God, it is pointless. And listen to how Jesus talks about it in Matthew 15:9

Mat 15:9  'BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'"

This is a worship that without meaning. And how does this worship come about? Through any number of ways. Here Jesus specifically speaks of teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. This will bring about vain worship. We can talk again about worship in ignorance. We can talk about doing things in worship that are false. We can talk about man-made ideas and inventions and assumptions. All of this produces a worship that is in vain. It is a worship that does not please God and does not produce what God desires.

ADDING ACTS OF WORSHIP THAT ARE NOT AUTHORIZED

We can see examples of this in the Old Testament.

Num 26:61  But Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the LORD.

Now we don’t deal with fire in relation to worship today and according to the teaching of the New Testament, but they did under the Law of Moses. There was a specific way God had said to go about things in the Old Testament in terms of fire. When Nadab and Abihu tried to add their own ideas to this, they displeased God, and God made that clear by striking them dead on the spot.

God is serious about worship. We see by example in the Old Testament how God responded to false worship. Today God does not strike men dead on the spot when they worship in error, obviously. Nor did he do that as a matter of common practice in the Old Testament either. On occasion, he did make example of someone who did what was wrong, by striking them dead such as Nadab and Abihu. But nonetheless, erroneous worship today, is no less serious a sin as it was in the time of Nadab and Abihu. We may not think of it that way. It is so often the thinking of men today that we are free to just do whatever we want with worship. That God is just a cheerful old fatherly figure who is happy with whatever we want to do. But worship is still serious, and worshipping in error is just as wrong today, as it ever has been. It’s the same God

TAKING AWAY ACTS OF WORSHIP THAT ARE AUTHORIZED

That is, we've been commanded to do something as a means of worship, and we don't do it, we ignore it, or decide it unimportant. For example, "I don’t really like to sing, so let’s not sing in worship."

SUBSTITUTING ACTS OF WORSHIP

When you combine these two points, taking away and adding to worship, you come up with this point. That's also what Nadab and Abihu did. They disregarded what God said to do, and did something else they though just as well, or even thought to be better.

Now think of the church today. What if we stopped taking the Lord’s Supper, and instead watched a scene from a movie about Jesus on the cross, would that be okay? In this day and age wouldn't a movie or maybe a play do even more to bring about the memory of Jesus’ death, and conjure up stronger emotions,  than taking the bread and fruit of the vine? Well maybe it would, but that's not what God instructed. That would be substituting worship, taking away what God instructed and doing something else we would prefer to do.

What if instead of singing, we hire some musicians to play pretty music for us? Wouldn't that be more moving than our own amateur singing? Maybe. But it's not what God instructed.

What if instead of preaching we have a play, we put on shows? Again, God did not instruct that, he instructed preaching from His word.

These kinds of things involve taking away and adding to God's instruction regarding worship and God is not pleased with such things. Again we can think of Nadab and Abihu with this point. They worshipped in a way that was just not right, and they were condemned in that. But God shouldn't have to strike people dead today to make his point. He's done that. Yes that was in the Old Testament and we are not under the Old Testament, but such examples do serve to tell us about God's nature and how he feels about worship.

1 Cor 10:6  Now these things happened as examples for us, that we should not crave evil things, as they also craved.

And so we need to learn from the Old Testament to be serious about worship, and to be serious about worshipping according to God's authority.

MODIFYING ACTS OF WORSHIP

Something else men may be guilty of, is doing what the Bible has instructed, but not in the way that it is instructed. For example, what if we sing, but we also add instruments of music to our singing. Or maybe We'll take the Lord’s Supper, but not only on the 1st day of the week, we'll take it on Wednesday night as well. Or maybe we'll add some other items on the table to partake of, because we think they would work well with the bread and the fruit of the vine, or they just taste better. Or maybe we'll not only make a financial offering on Sundays, but on Wednesdays too. In fact we'll also come up with. some other ways of raising money for the church that the Bible has not authorized. In other words, we’ll seek to do what God has said, but in our own way.

We need to be very careful of tampering with God's instruction regarding worship, and the church. God has said what is to be done, and how it is to be done, and it doesn't matter if the year is 1AD or 2004 AD, His instructions have not changed, and it is not for us to try to change them.

WORSHIPPING FROM AN IMPURE HEART

False worship is not simply a matter of doing something wrong in worship, or adding to what God has said, it’s also a matter of heart, of attitude. Worshipping from an impure heart is also a false form of worship. In fact,  worshipping with the right heart is just as important as worshipping in the right manner, and doing the right things.

Coming before God to worship with a corrupt heart, does not please God. Coming to worship God in hypocrisy, does not please God. Listen to what the apostle Paul says about taking the Lord’s Supper.

1 Cor 11:28  But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

1 Cor 11:29  For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.

Paul says that a man needs to examine himself when taking the Lord’s Supper in worship. The Old Testament meanwhile is filled with condemnations upon those who worship God in the right way, with the right activities, but with corrupt hearts. With dirty lives, and double minds

God is very demanding, and what God demands, is a pure heart, and a pure life. God is serious about worship, we need to be as well. After considering these types of unacceptable worship, let's look at another kind of worship.

Let’s consider worship that is acceptable to God. This is the kind of worship the Bible says is a true and spiritual worship.

TRUE SPIRITUAL WORSHIP

This is worship that is done truthfully, and is done spiritually. it is done in the right way, and with the right heart, and this is exactly what God has commanded. In John chapter 4, Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman, and he talks to her about worship, and what worship is to be in is kingdom he was about to establish.

John 4:20  "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

John 4:21  Jesus said^ to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father.

John 4:22  "You worship that which you do not know; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

John 4:23  "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

John 4:24  "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Jesus says, you must worship in spirit and in truth. True worship, is worship done according to God's teaching, according to the pattern. This is worship that is done correctly, as God has instructed. True and scriptural worship involves certain elements. We're talking about singing, praying, preaching, giving on the first day of the week, and Partaking of the Lord's supper on the first day of the week. True worship involves these things and it involves doing these things as God has instructed, not adding to or taking away.

But then we also have to consider spiritual worship. That means your heart is involved. And when I say heart I don’t simply mean feelings. Some make the mistake of thinking that our own feelings are all that matters and we should do whatever brings us to some emotional high.  That’s not the point of spiritual worship. Yes feelings are involved in all that we do, but to speak of spiritual worship, to involve the heart, means that we worship with knowledge and understanding and focus and appreciation and love. It means you worship from your heart, with a spiritual response and involvement.

Listen to what Paul says: 

1 Cor 14:15  What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.

Paul is speaking in this context about the misuse of the spiritual or miraculous gifts in the 1st century. Many of the brethren in Corinth had misunderstood what they were all about, and they were pursuing the speaking of tongues regardless of anyone understanding the languages. They were making quite a mess of things in their worship and they needed to be corrected in that. But in making these points, Paul emphasizes that what is important when you pray, and what is important when you sing, is that you do so with the spirit, and he's not talking about the Holy Spirit specifically but about your own spirit, that is your own heart felt worship, and that you do so with the understanding.

Proper singing and praying and proper worship involves your feelings your passions and devotion and adoration, as well as your intellect, your reasoning, comprehension, understanding, and knowledge.

We need to think about the worship that we render. We need to make sure we understand what we're doing. We need to make sure we are spiritual in our worship. Worship that lacks spirit falls short of God's will for us. Worship that has no feeling to it, that's cold and without love or passion or devotion, does not please God. And worship that comes from a life that is immoral, is not fitting for the Lord.

-Derek Chambers

ACCEPTABLE WORSHIP

Sandia Church of Christ

Albuquerque, New Mexico