Fruits of Worship

Excerpt from book, New Creation Spirituality.

True worship finds all sorts of manifest expressions. One such expression is what we typically experience on Sunday mornings. There is nothing wrong with flashy stage displays and ecstatic praise experiences, so long as they are grounded in the guiding and direction of the Holy Spirit. One responsibility of God’s New Testament priesthood is the offering of praise. This praise is an outward response to a glorious internal reality, not a patterned activity that religion has conditioned into us. 

Concerning manifest expressions of worship, the apostle Paul writes the following:   

“Let the word of Christ (the presence of the Holy Spirit) dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:16-17 (NIV), annotations mine  

We can notice in this passage that to worship is to do everything “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” An overflow of anointing-driven worship includes spontaneous, Spirit-inspired psalms and hymns. Our issue today is that Sunday morning worship has become more of a patterned ritual than a spontaneous, Spirit-led experience. This is the fruit of dead religion that hinders fresh and revelatory experiences of God’s presence. Our songs, set designs, and general church layout are usually copied from prominent, visible Christian ministries. The result is the “template effect”- churches that strive to sound and act like other churches instead of pursuing fresh, creative spiritual vision for themselves. This pattern hinders the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit and the fresh life He hopes to bring to each church. We must aim to be the people God desires us to be, not the people we think that God desires us to be, nor the people that other people desire us to be.   

Another passage on worship from Ephesians makes an essential point for our understanding of true Christian worship. 

“Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Ephesians 5:17-19 (NASB)

In this passage, Paul writes that the filling of the Spirit, the overflow of the anointing, produces spontaneous expressions of worship in the Christian assembly. Paul comments that drunkenness is “dissipation.” This is such an interesting word choice. Dissipation is the slow and gradual lapse into a state of non-being. There is a beautiful contrast here of life and death. Sin is dissipation and decay into a non-human state. As we are filled with the Spirit, God brings us into the fullness of our new creation humanity that has been freed from the bonds of sin and death. To worship God in the Spirit is to become fully human, to operate in the fullness of our original design. To sin is to deny God’s gift of eternal life and remain in a state of death and decay.

Expressions of genuine worship extend beyond mere songs, of course. Paul writes in both of these passages that whatever we do should be done “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” which means all of our actions and words should be empowered by the Holy Spirit. This again reinforces the idea that “worship” is not isolated to any one particular activity. Worship is a spirituality that bears fruit for eternal life. To worship is to steward God’s eternal presence in mind and body. 

This is where the significance of art comes into the greater picture of Christian spirituality. Art is ultimately a manifestation of a spiritual reality. It takes the unseen qualities of the heart and makes them manifest. Painting, dancing, writing of all kinds, crafting, and film are all examples of how spiritual realities can be made manifest in our natural reality. Again, remember that heaven, God’s reality, is not “out there somewhere.” His reality exists side-by-side with our reality. Christian art is a way of expressing these realities. This is how we can be profoundly moved or even healed by a song, a poem, or a film. The Holy Spirit uses the sounds, words, and sights as a “channel” into the natural realm. 

Jesus told His disciples, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.The words I have spoken to you - they are full of the Spirit and life” (See John 6:62-63). The implication here is that spiritual power accompanies and flows through natural words. This is exactly why the scriptures are so powerful to us. The words themselves are merely human but they carry a divine power. They are divinity garbed in humanity. The Bible is God’s artwork, a tangible manifestation of His reality. It is a masterpiece of worship crafted by dozens of men over centuries and centuries.

Art is a channel for the unseen realm. This is where the concept of “inspiration” comes from. Inspiration literally means to “breathe in.” Something that is inspired is “breathed in” from another realm. Inspiration is not limited to the heavenly - to what is noble, pure, and lovely. Art that is birthed in spiritual darkness will carry a spirit of darkness. This is why it is so important for Christians to consider spiritual “diet” - what we regularly expose ourselves to and ingest. Our worship is where we fix our attention and mental concentration. If we worship darkness, we will become like darkness. My point here is not to instill fear or religious legalism, but that we should carefully discern the forces operating behind what we expose ourselves to. We want to be careful that we do not become conscious, willful participants with the demonic realm, which is characterized by fear, hatred, division, lust, and violence. 

Made in God’s image, humans are living and breathing expressions of worship. Ephesians 2:10 says that we are God’s “artwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” These “good works” are the myriad expressions of worship that we are capable of as partakers of the divine nature. Like our Father, we have the ability to create, to manifest tangible things that find their ultimate origin in the Spirit. Our outward activity is the product of our inner worship - what we set our hearts and minds on. Our task is to externally manifest the kingdom of heaven and God’s reality. This reality is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy (See Philippians 4:8).