Northeast Baptist Church

The Bible doesn't give a formal definition of worship. The English word "worship" comes from two Old English words: weorth, which means "worth," and scipe or ship, which means something like shape or "quality." We can see the Old English word -ship in modern words like friendship and sportsmanship - that's the quality of being a friend, or the quality of being a good sport.

So worth-ship is the quality of having worth or of being worthy. When we worship, we are saying that God has worth, that he is worthy. Worship means to declare worth, to attribute worth. Or to put it in biblical terms, we praise God. We speak, or sing, about how good and powerful God is.

This is a purpose for which we are called: "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 Peter 2:9). We were called for the purpose of praising God, worshiping God. That is one of the job descriptions of a Christian. We should declare that God is worthy, worth more than everything else put together.

There is a worship that expresses the heart (praise), and worship that involves the mind (learning), and a worship that involves the body (doing). There is a worship that is giving praise upward, a worship that is receiving instructions from above, and a worship that carries out instruction in the world around us.

We need all three types of worship. Some people focus primarily on speaking or singing praise to God. Praise is good, but if all we do is praise God, without ever listening to what God says, we have to ask whether we believe the words we are saying. If God is really all wise and all loving, then we need to be attentive to what God is telling us, because the words are worth listening to.

Similarly, all talk and no action does not show God the respect God deserves. Actions speak louder than words, and if our behavior isn't changed by God, then our actions are saying that God is not important - a nice idea, but not relevant to our day-to-day lives. When we really believe that God is worthy of every praise, then we will be willing to listen and to change the way we live in response to such a worthy God. We will trust and seek and want to please God as much as we can. Worship should affect our behavior.