Worship, Faith, Grace, and Music Making
Event: Worship! LA (Christian Worship Conference)

"Presenter: Dr. Harold Best, Former Dean of Wheaton Conservatory of Music and Author of Music Through the Eyes of Faith.

Location: Biola University, La Mirada, CA Time: February 26, 1999

(This is a handout which was given to attendees at Worship! LA)

Worship, as we know, is on everybody's mind. Seminars, methods, symposia, textbooks, conferences, even full-fledged academic programs give continuous coverage to the subject. There is no doubt that the typical evangelical has more resources, more options, more ideas, and more liturgical equipment than ever before. Even the historically liturgical churches, the ones that we honor most as being the truly worshipful traditions, have devoted less conscious talk to the subject of worship than we. We may well have been caught up in the words and works of worship far more than in the principles which drive them. We may now be guilty of worshipping worship, a curiously twisted kind of idolatry. Or, if we are not worshipping worship, we are worshipping about it, all too self conscious about that which should be hidden by its own glory. Consequently, many Christians are thrown into that trap of always wondering if what they are doing is really worship, or, if they have to do even more to enter into that state. And it may even be that we talk more about worship than the Bible itself does.

Even so, this talk is curiously one-sided. It offers almost unlimited information as to what we can do on a Sunday or other "set-apart" times, but it leaves out the primary conceptual territory upon which all the doing depends.

Nonetheless, we should not consider all of this information useless. We must cherish it. But we must hold it in reserve until we sort out a foundational theology from which it more naturally flows. Doing this will teach us that all worship, fallen or redeemed, is a continuing state. We have to get our minds off of "church-time" worship, as if it were the only time, and on to the whole picture itself, of which church-time worship is but one part. We must reform our ideas of what "causes" worship. We must develop a theology of creativity and handiwork in order that we be spared the subtle kinds of idolatry in which aids to worship and acts of worship are confused, in which music is said, on the one hand, to be an aid to -or tool of- worship, and on the other, an act of worship. Biblically speaking, we cannot have it both ways.

Here are a few beginning pieces of the foundation. They follow in a fairly natural sequence. Each, in itself, is rather obvious, but added up in a biblical fashion, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

• Worship is the continuous act of showing what we consider to be most worthy - that which, by consequence, masters and shapes us.

• We were created to worship continuously, to be in continual adoration of and submission to the One-Who-Is-Worth-The Most: God alone.

• When we fell, we did not cease our worship. Somehow, the urge to worship remained with us, but was turned upside down and backwards. With worship continuing, we exchanged gods, turning from the only Creator to creature in all of is manifold diversity.

• Consequently, all worship, except the worship of God, is idolatry, in that all other objects of worship (angels, spirits, things, places, jobs, artifacts) are some kind of handiwork. Idolatry, in its most basic state is: 1) the act of being shaped by something we have chosen to shape us; 2) shaping something ourselves and then allowing it to shape us.

• There is not only idolatrous worship apart from Christian worship, there is also idolatry within Christian worship, especially where we confuse acts and aids and where we depend on created things to bring worship about.

• The only solution to these otherwise irreversible evils lies in the finished work of Christ, through whom we can once again turn our continuous, fallen, backwards and upside down worship to the continuous and redeemed worship of God himself. Redemption turns us from the Lie to the Truth, from creature to Creator, and from works to faith

• There is but one call to Christian worship. It comes at the new birth and need not be repeated again, any more than our salvation does. The once-for-all work of Christ is the eternal seal to our salvation, our walking in the Light, our continuous worship, and our perpetual witness. From then on, our worship continues, right side up, at all times and in all places. Thus, we state our worship, but do not call ourselves to it.

• Worship is not entering into the presence of God or drawing near Him, for how can we do these things when Christ is in us, the Hope of glory? Worship is continuing in His presence while we continue to grow up into the stature of the fullness of Christ.

• Thus, we do not go to church to worship, nor are any activities meant to lead us into that state, for that state has already been brought about by redemption. Instead, we go to church, already at worship, but now to continue our worship corporately.

• This kind of worship is by faith alone unto more faith alone. We do not sing in order to worship; we sing because we worship.

• Continuous worship being our only possible state, our entire lives then become living epistles in which everything that we do, day in, day out, moment by moment, is marked by being a living sacrifice, worshipping in the continuum of spirit and truth and marking our sojourn of the beauty of holiness.

• Consequently, there are no aids to worship, only offerings of worship. The Holy Spirit alone is our Aid. God is at once Means and End. Christ is our Substance and our Center.

Once we learn this, put it in place and rigorously follow it, day in and day out, we can then turn back to the information side of worship: times, places, options, activities, sequences, protocols, artifacts, diversities, and decisions. We are then free to offer them, no longer depending on them. The Giver is in continuous lordship over the gifts. The work of Christ takes precedence over our works of worship and we rest from our works and are free to give them over to the glory of God.

In summary, we can no longer continue to commit the error of thinking of worship as something now and then, of thinking of music as a "preparer," a "tool," a "lead-in or lead-out." We can no longer allow sincere but mistaken "worship leaders" to imply that worship is a particularized, music-oriented centrality: "We'll have a time of prayer, then we'll worship (meaning "we'll sing"), then we'll hear from God's word and from His servant." Above all else, worship is simple, not complex. It is by faith, not by works. It is of grace and not earned. It is all the time and everywhere, or God is not God, Christ is not Christ, the Holy Spirit not the Holy Spirit. Once we get this straight, then we can understand that witness is nothing more or less than overheard worship and worship as that which cannot help but witness.