What Does 'Worship Is Warfare' Actually Mean?

You’ve almost certainly heard that ‘Worship is warfare’’. You are likely familiar with popular ‘Newer Testament’ (as I like to call it) passages like Ephesians 6, that tell us “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”. Or maybe 2 Corinthians 10, which tells us to use spiritual rather than carnal “weapons”. But the shape of this “wrestling”, the form of these “weapons” is often vague. How do we wrestle? What are these spiritual weapons? How do we wield them? 

Comparing worship to warfare sounds great, but if we don’t dig in a little and make sure we define our terms and lay out practical steps then it’s just another meaningless Christian platitude.

Over a short series of articles I will explore the phrase “Worship is Warfare” and try to practically explain what it means and how we do it. 

A Biblical Starting Point

A great place to start is to take a moment to read 2 Chronicles 20:1-30. 

To remind you of the context, Jehoshaphat was the son of Asa and the fourth King of Judah. Jehoshaphat began his reign at the age of 35 and reigned on the throne in Judah for 25 years and his time as king is summarized in 2 Chronicles 17-21. He was a mostly good King, who spent the early years of his reign tearing down idols and sending Levitical priests throughout the kingdom to instruct his people in God’s law, and making religious reforms.

2 Chronicles 20 comes right after these reforms, and there comes opposition to the good Jehoshaphat is trying to do. The Moabites create an alliance with the Ammonites and the Meunites, and together they march against Judah. 

Jehoshaphat knows that Judah’s army, even if they could get help from the Northern tribes of Israel, is no match for this conglomerate enemy. Not knowing what to do, he gathers the people together to seek the Lord in worship and prayer. As Judah assembles in corporate worship – the men and the women, the officials and the people, and even the children – knowing that they will either fall in battle or be rescued by God, a priest gets a word from the Lord reminding them that God is the one who wins battles on their behalf. He instructs the people to go and stand their ground on the battlefield, and watch God win for them. 

Imagine that. “Don’t focus on the strength of your army, alliances, or tactics of traditional warfare… go out and meet them, militarily unprepared yet having gone before the Lord in worship, trusting His promise to win for you.” That is a step of true faith.

Jehoshaphat obeys, and as an act of obedience, he sends the musicians out in front of the army. And what happens? “And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, devoting them to destruction, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.” (2 Chronicles 20:22-23) 

God slays the allied enemies of Jehoshaphat, and all Judah has to do is spend three days collecting the plunder. God rescues Judah in response to their corporate worship.

This is not a biblical rareity. In face, we see this pattern repeated across Scripture.

• In Exodus 2 Israel cries out to God and when Yahweh hears them cry out he raises up Moses for their deliverance, sending plagues on their captors. 
• Samuel assembles the people at Mizpah and the Philistines attack them. Samuel sacrifices on the altar, and they cry out to the Lord. God thunders at the Philistines, throwing them into utter confusion, giving Israel a great victory in response.
• This is the pattern of the entire book of Revelation, the Lamb is worshipped in heaven and convulsions are thrown down onto the earth. 

But what’s actually happening? Is this a mystic recipe? When we worship God does it summon him to battle? To answer this question we first have to define our terms. 

What is worship?

In Genesis 22, when Abraham takes his son up the mountain with everything necessary to sacrifice Isaac, the text says that they were going up the mountain to worship. But they did not have instruments or overhead projectors with them. Even though we often describe the time of singing in our corporate services as the “worship time” and give the name “worship team” to those with the instruments and microphones, worship is far more than merely singing or praise. 

An easy way to think of worship is as worth-ship. We ascribe value or worth to a thing, and then we serve that to which we have ascribed the highest worth. Those who value money above all will, with their actions and choices, live in such a way as to serve money. They will make much of it, showing by their lifestyle what is most important to them. 

Another word for worship is service. Worship is serving what you value most. 

Romans 12 tells us to offer our bodies, our lives, as a living sacrifice and we are told doing so is our spiritual act of worship. So, in a Christian context, worship is ascribing the most amount of worth to God and then serving Him in obedience to what He has commanded. In this sense, worship is not merely a corporate gathering of God’s people… it is not less than that, but it is certainly more. 

God created the world so that such worship could saturate the globe. After all:

• “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations…” (Psalm 22:27-28).
• “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be[great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 1:11)
• “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Revelation 15:4)

Not only is the worship of God the purpose of creation, it is also the means by which God sees that purpose accomplished. 

Consider Exodus 3 when God calls Moses to go and tell Pharaoh to let his people go that they might “worship him on the mountain”. One could ask (as many congregations did during the covid era) why can’t Israel just worship God from Egypt? Why can’t they just worship God where they are with their own families or even by themselves? Isn’t it a worship service when two or more are gathered in his name? Why gather them all together in a particular place for the kind of worship God was jealous for? The answer is that God truly does call us to corporate worship and corporate worship is the heartbeat of a Christian church. 

Two Places At Once

Throughout the Newer Testament an analogy used to describe the church is as a body. All the members are different parts of the body, whether noses, knees or middle fingers. It is helpful then to think of the corporate worship of a particular local body as the heart which pumps the blood to every member and vital organ. It is what supplies life and strength to all the parts of the body that need to do their job in order for the body to function. But without a healthy heart there is no blood, no life that can sustain the vitality of the body. 

When we assemble for our weekly corporate worship gathering on the Lord’s Day, we are in two places at once. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and we are IN CHRIST. A local body of believers is physically wherever they gather for worship (for me it’s Ingersoll Ontario, for you it may be Battle Creek, Michigan, London England or anywhere across the globe) but they are not ONLY there. They are where they are physically and they are in the heavenlies. Ephesians is addressed “to the saints that are in Ephesus” (Eph. 1:1) but Paul goes on later to say in 2:6 that they are “seated … with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. The Christians receiving Paul’s letter and reading it to the saints, the husbands and wives (5:22-33), children (6:1), slaves and masters (6:5) who are present for corporate worship are in two places at one time. They are in Ephesus and they are in the heavenly throne room. 

This reality is taught explicitly in Hebrews 12. After culminating in chapter 10 urging his readers not to neglect the corporate gathering the author tells us why the corporate gathering is so important: 

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12: 22-29)

We, the worshippers whom the author is describing, have come to the heavenly Jerusalem… despite being physically upon the earth, we come in a very real sense into the heavenly assembly, where angels are gathered, where the Father is seated, where perfected saints reside in Christ, and to Christ himself. 

When two allied armies come together that is a force multiplier… when we worship God as he has prescribed as his assembled people, we are joined together with the hosts of heaven, the armies of heaven. 

We are being taken by the Holy Spirit to worship God the Father in God the Son, in heaven. We are not down here hoping a message gets through up there, we are there with him, in the throne room, worshiping him and asking him to take this worship and bring it to earth. 

This is what Jesus means in the Lord’s prayer. Our worship is asking His kingdom to come – as we worship him in the heavenlies— his name becomes hallowed here, his authority is being poured down on the earth. 

In the next article we will look at how exactly God’s authority manifests through proper worship.