What is worship?  Webster's 1828 defines it several ways, here are a few…

 Chiefly and eminently, the act of paying divine honors to the Supreme Being; or the reverence and homage paid to him in religious exercises, consisting in adoration, confession, prayer, thanksgiving and the like

 To adore; to pay divine honors to; to reverence with supreme respect and veneration.

 To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission; as a lover.

 Worship is more than just singing songs, praying or going to church on Sunday.  Worship is how we live every second of every minute of the day.  God created us to worship Him.  Or lives should be an expression of worship. 

 I think the best definition Noah Webster gave is, “to honor with extravagant love and extreme submission”. God is looking for true worshipers who will worship Him in Spirit and Truth.  I think the Church is still not getting it.  There is great division in the church in “how” we worship.  Some say it’s this way others say it’s that.  Their arguments usually have to do with the style of music or church service they have, and that has very little to do with true worship.  What is true worship?  Let’s go to the Word of God together and see what He has to say about it.

 I heard a minister once say that there is a “rule of firsts” in the bible.  What that means is that when something is mentioned for the first time in the word of God it tends to carry the same theme throughout the bible.  For example God created man from the dust of the earth.  When sin came into the world God cursed the serpent, “On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life”.  In the new testament God says, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  If dust is symbolic of our flesh then you can pretty much guarantee that if we are operating in the flesh the enemy is going to have us for lunch.

 With that being said, what can we learn about worship?  We must start at the first place worship is mentioned in the bible.  Genesis 22:5 “He [Abraham] said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."  They weren’t going up the mountain to sing songs.  So often in the church we think praise is the fast songs and worship is the slow songs.  According to this scripture worship has nothing to do with music.  It has to do with sacrifice.  Abraham out of extreme submission was going to sacrifice his son, not just any son but the son of promise.  As an act of worship out of his extravagant love for God he was going to sacrifice the one thing that meant everything. 

 Let’s now go to the new testament and look to Christ as our example.  Jesus, as an act of extravagant love, with extreme submission, laid down His life as a sacrifice for us.   See worship is about love, submission and sacrifice.  Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  What is the great commandment?  Love.  God has commanded us to love one another.  The only way we can do that is by sacrifice, dying to self.  Love is patient, kind, longsuffering, forgiving, it’s not jealous, self serving, proud, arrogant or rude, love never fails. 

 God is looking for “True Worshipers” who worship HIM in spirit and truth.  Spirit is what is within you, truth is what proceeds out of you.  I think Paul summed it up perfectly when he said, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship”  So when you’re being patient with people when they don’t seem to care that you’re in a hurry, that’s worship.  When you’re submitting to your husband or employer when you don’t agree, that’s worship.  When you’re loving your children by not being rude when they need correction, you’re worshiping your Father in heaven.  When you forgive that person that totally devastated you and broke your heart you are actually worshipping God.  That’s what it means to worship in spirit and truth.

 Jesus was trying to explain that to the woman at the well.  It’s not about where, or even how, you worship it’s about your heart, who and why you worship.  God is looking for people that love Him enough to lay down their lives for others.  We sing it in our churches all the time, “It’s not about me, It’s all about you”.  But do we really mean it.  Do our lives reflect that of a life of sacrifice?