Below is a theology of worship for Berean Community Church. This is not a description or defense of particular worship practices; rather, it is a high level view of what we believe the Bible says about worship. This theology serves as a foundation for our attitude about worship when we gather on Sunday morning and for our daily lives as we seek to glorify God in all that we do. Click on link below to jump to a particular section or scroll down to begin reading. Enjoy!

It All Starts With God
Worship Is What We Do
Worship And The Gospel
Worship in Spirit and Truth
Worship as Grace

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It All Starts With God

If worship is to honor God, it must start with God and center around God. With God, worship would not exist because the universe would not exist and we would not exist.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." - Genesis 1:1

Everything starts with God. He spoke the universe into existence out of nothing (ex nihlo). God is the central reality in the universe.¹

"From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever." - Romans 11:36

The pinnacle of God's creation is humanity. Genesis 1:27 says

"God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

Being made in the image of God (imago dei) is a characteristic that is special to men and women. This is what sets mankind apart from everything else that God created. While being very much not like God, Man is more like God than anything else that God created. We have been given a measure of God's attributes such as intelligence, morality, creativity, love, mercy, etc. As God's image-bearers, men and women have the capacity to experience a personal connection with God unlike any other of God's creatures. God also created Man with a purpose. That purpose is given in Isaiah 43:6-7

"Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."

Man was created to glorify God. One of the famous creeds of the Christian church is the Westminster Catechism which states that the chief end of Man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Glorifying God means loving Him, trusting Him, obeying Him, and valuing Him above all other things.

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Worship is What We Do

Harold Best remarks in the opening chapter of his book Unceasing Worship:

"We begin with one fundamental fact about worship: at this very moment, and for as long as this world endures, everybody inhabiting it is bowing down and serving something or someone - an artifact, a person, an institution, an idea, a spirit, or God through Christ. Everyone is being shaped thereby and is growing up toward some measure of fullness, whether of righteousness or of evil. No one is exempt and no one can wish to be. We are, every one of us, unceasing worshippers and will remain so forever..."

Worship is what we were created doing and we never stop doing it. The only thing that ever changes is the object of our worship. When God created us He intended for the object of our worship to be Him. He placed Adam and Eve in the garden to be their God and their ruler. They were to glorify God by trusting Him, obeying His commands, and enjoying God as the supplier of all their needs. Worship of God was to be continuous and "second nature." But Adam and Eve were deceived into believing that there was someting better than worshipping God. Worship was forever broken and cursed.

Since that terrible day in the garden, mankind has never functioned as worshippers the way God intended. Mankind no longer has the desire to place God in His rightful place at the center of their worship.

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." - Romans 1:18-22

We will never function correctly as worshippers as long as we continue to lift up other things as objects of our worship whether it be money, success, family, relationships, our own ideologies, entertainment, or possessions. We will suffer frustration and purposelessness until God is the pure and complete object of our worship.

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Worship and The Gospel

In one sense, the entire Bible is a story about recovering worship. God did not need to tell Adam and Eve how to worship Him because He made them worshippers of Him. But their disobedience resulted in pure worship being lost from the human experince. Mankind is alienated and separated from God by sin. While mankind still worships, it does not worship God.

"None is righteous, no, not one; No one understands; No one seeks for God." - Romans 3:10-11

In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul summarizes this fallen condition.

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." - Ephesians 2:1-3

This is, in essence, a statement about corrupted worship. Rather than following, and hence worshipping the true God, mankind worships the "prince of the power of the air" (known to be Satan) and the passions of their own desires. God has been ousted as the supreme object of worship and replaced with evil counterfeits. Exodus 20:3-6 says that God is righteously jealous over anything that takes His place as the object of our worship. This is why Paul states in Ephesians 2:3 that we are "by nature children of wrath."

In the Old Testament, the story of recovering worship began with the establishment of the temple. The temple was the central place for worship where God's glory resided in the inner most part of the temple called the Holy of Holies. The temple was never intended to fully restore worship but serve as a pointer to, or a shadow of, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who would later come and declare in Matthew 12:6

"I tell you, something greater than the temple is here."

Through Jesus Christ, God ultimately restores worship by doing what temple worship could not do, namely, fully reconcile mankind to Himself.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." - John 3:16-17

"And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death" - Colossians 1:21-22a

Paul continues in Ephesians 3 to give the Good News of Gospel.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." - Ephesians 2:4-9

The Gospel is what "fixes" worship. Through Jesus Christ alone we are reconciled to God. Though we were once dead to God and did not worship Him, by faith in Christ we are made alive to Him and are enabled to worship God. Without Jesus Christ, true worship of God is not possible. When we gather to worship we want to put the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the forefront of our thinking.  We want to remember what Jesus has done for us on the cross.

Additionally, Jesus Christ is the "image of the invisible God" and "all the fullness of God" dwells in Jesus. (Colossians 1:15, 19) Jesus Christ is God and we worship Him.

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Worship in Spirit and Truth

Worship is Spirit-driven
Worship with your mind - knowing doctrine
Worship with your heart - joyful response
More to come...

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Worship as Grace

Worship as a "means of grace"...how is worship grace?
Worship as a weapon against unbelief
God draws near in worship
More to come...