WORSHIP (Part 1)

Today, we will be teaching on WORSHIP

I remember the first time I heard to teach it, in my head I was like “everybody on Word Alive knows what worship is na. I have a list of teachings we’ve not done so maybe when we finish those ones.”

But then, God told me there are certain things He wants to open our eyes to;

Things we actually do not know, 

Things we do but without context and intentionality.

It is also a reminder of the life we will be leading for 2024. (PS I’m praying that I don’t slip in our watchword for 2024 during this teaching. Amen in Jesus name 😂)

To our teaching...

I know this is not the first time you have heard about Worship.

In fact, I know you know one or two things about worship. So I’m throwing this out to everyone,

In your own words and without checking online, what is WORSHIP?

Anointing Daniel: Worship is a lifestyle of sacrificing ourselves to God. Having Christ live and I die in my every activity. I believe worship is also one of the primary reasons why we were created, with the instruments in our chords and the percussion of our hands, and the fruit of our lips. Worship is the entryway into the manifest presence of God.

Layo: WORSHIP is an act of expressing your feelings to God. It’s also a means of communicating to God.

Jane: Worship is a nature of reverence to a Supreme being, it is communication, it's meant to be done in spirit and truth.

Starlight: Worship is an act of reverence to someone or something you hold in high esteem or reverence to someone who has done something that melts your heart.

 

WORSHIP

What is Worship?

I will start with layman's terms;

The Word Worship comes from two old English words: Weorth which means worth and scipe which means quality, form or shape.

From this old English definition, we can deduce that Worship is not just the declaration of worth of a thing or person, we take it further as the declaration of the Quality of Worth of something.

In-depth declaration

Contrary to popular belief/act, Worship is not songs.

Worship is not Thanksgiving 

Worship is also not praise

We use songs to convey our worship of God. We use it as a medium to express how we feel about God; our adoration of Him. We also use songs even for thanksgiving and praise. 

Music is just a medium, It is not worship in itself.

 

Worship is not Thanksgiving

Some of us mistake Worship for thanksgiving, they are not the same thing.

If I say let’s open our mouths and begin to worship God and what comes out of your mouth is:

Thank you God for what you have done, 

Thank you for healing me,

Thank you for provision,

Etc.

This is thanksgiving, and it is not bad, but it is also not worship. It is a stage that every believer must attain but must also never be stuck on.

If you are stuck at the thanksgiving stage in your relationship with God, what it means is that on days you have nothing to be thankful for, you are blank.

Your heart does not know how to adequately communicate the worth of God because His worth has been associated with what He does for you only and not who He is.

Worship is not Praise

To praise something is to talk about it’s value in high esteem. What a person/product can do or has done. Praise can sometimes be a form of Worship but it is not Worship. 

Praise also focuses on God’s ability and magnifies it in the place of Worship.

Again, every believer must know how to praise God. But we must not stop here.

Worship is like an inner court. It goes beyond what God can offer but seeing God for Who He is. Worship strips the focus from us and places it on God alone. 

It takes a man with an unwavering gaze to see someone for who they really are, beyond what they can do or have done. 

To see their makeup beyond usability/functionality.

Question for the house

Where will you classify these words:

“Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the works thy hands have made

I see the stars 

I hear the rolling thunder

Thy power throughout, the universe displayed 

Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee

How great though art”

Jane: This is praise

Tobi Wilson: The first line looks looking worship, while the rest of the lines can be categorized as praise

Grace Solomon: Worship

 

Answer:

This is actually a mix of praise and worship 

On the first look, it is praise , but when you break down these words with intent, you will see a beautiful unveiling of worship.

You will see how the writer is in awe of God Himself through the things He has seen Of God. Through the things created; these ones without human voices but yet screaming aloud of how great God is.

Praise, worship and thanksgiving can be blended.

Our focus in this series is on Worship, so it will be sort of magnified beyond these other 2.

Please note that this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t praise or give thanks. In fact, there are places where praise is used for Worship in the Bible.

 

Worship sees God!

We’ve established that worship is awe and reverence for God.

Worship is an in-depth declaration of the quality of worth of this God. Not just that He is worthy but exactly how deep His worthiness is.

You cannot really ascertain the quality/worth of a thing without beholding it. So in worship, we must first see God. 

You cannot speak of the worth of something you know nothing about.

You must see God.

And when I use see here, I do not just use it as in look.

See, in-depth, the kind of seeing that brings a knowledge.

You know when we use this word for God: El-Roi - The God that sees 

We do not just use it as He can see me, His eyes are not paining Him.

It speaks of a knowledge 

God that sees me deeply 

God that knows me 

God that understands

Worship is a response to our beholding God!

It is the right understanding of the nature of God and right valuing of the worth of God.

Worship is how our heart responds to the knowledge our mind processes when our mind has rightly understood God and grasped His worth.

What we do when we worship is that we have processed the worth of God as we behold Him and our bodies cannot keep calm.

So our bodies through our mouths, postures, melodies begin to express this worth as we’ve seen it, our bodies begin to rave about Him.

While I was thinking on the angels worshipping God all through, from before the beginning, 

In my head: do they get tired of repeating?

And here’s God’s answer to that: My worth is endless

I don’t know if you get it

It could be a pause on holiness for 1000 years and they will not run out of this response called worship. They’d not have finished dissecting it.

But the time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. In fact, that time is now here. And these are the kind of people the Father wants to be his worshipers. God is spirit. So the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:23-24 ERV

God is spirit, so the people who worship must worship in spirit and in truth.

Only by the power of the Spirit can we worship God as He really is

We will talk about Worshipping God in spirit on Saturday as we continue the series but there is something I quickly want to point out to us. So many times, when we say worship God in spirit, most of us believers respond by speaking in tongues. 

Actually, as a leader, I am sure I have said plenty of times 

Everybody, worship God in the Holy Ghost. Worship Him in heavenly language. 🌚🌚🌚 Abi?

Here’s what God told me and that I’d like to correct: So many times, when we are worshipping in tongues, we are not worshipping actually. We are not beholding anything, we cannot see God.

Some of us cannot even describe God for 10 minutes non stop. Some of us cannot utter words in worship of God for 10 minutes.

We will not know what to say again.

Do you know the culprit? We do not know God.

You cannot worship a God you have no knowledge of.

So what we do instead is start speaking in tongues.

We try to make up for our knowledge of God with tongues that most times we do not even understand.

I was watching The Outpouring last week and when Baba Adeboye picked the mic and started worshipping. He started calling God His names and breaking those names down.

Before you know it, everyone got on their knees (a posture of worship) without being told.

The atmosphere literally changed!

I could sense a fear and reverence of God in the air.

Watch our devout parents, when they want to pray, they will call God some names.

And you sef you know

A lot of us in our generation do not see God 

And it shows in our worship

I will be going into this deeper on Saturday but I’m just going to share this correction here now: 

All through this week, our worship must be in words!

No tongues!

If I hear your tongue, I will cut it 🌚 You will use it when we are praying generally.

As we behold God, you will express in your own words and language

PS: Does this mean praying in tongues abi worshipping in tongue is wrong? The answer is no.

The reason we are largely doing this is that God has pointed out that most of us have not been in fact worshipping. We do not know Him.

And we’ve been covering up this with tongues.

When the Bible says we worship Him in spirit and truth, the “in spirit” there doesn’t actually mean in tongues. (I will break it down in the next class).