So what does worship in the church look like? I don’t mean what you are used to experiencing weekly, I mean from your understanding of scripture, what would church look like? We are used to the modern Evangelical church where there will be several songs, someone will pray as a transition for the pastor to come to the platform, there may be some announcements toward the beginning or the end and there is likely an invitation. If you are part of a more formal liturgical church your experience may be a little more structured and contain a few more elements, but the Christian church of the west has a fairly typical program. However, Francis Chan in his book Letters to the Church says, “Imagine you find yourself stranded on a deserted island and you have nothing but a copy of the Bible. You have no experience with Christianity whatsoever, and all you know about the Church will come from your reading of the Bible. How would you imagine a church to function? Seriously, close your eyes for two minutes and try to picture “Church” as you would know it. Now think about your current experience. Is it even close? Can you live with that?”
We call our church services “worship” services. That is an important distinction. So let’s set aside our template that we are used to. Let’s set aside tradition and let’s look at what it would truly mean for our services to be “worship services.” I am already pumped just beginning to think about it. Just imagine the anticipation of walking into a room with like-minded believers coming with the intentionality and anticipation of entering the presence and encountering the infinite God of the universe who knows no limits of power and knowledge and wisdom. He knows no boundaries of time or space. There is not the slightest hint of deceit or false intentions but only perfect goodness, absolute truth, holiness and justice. And despite such infinite transcendence, He knows your name and loves you not like His child but as His child! And you get to enter His presence. WOW!
But worship is not about you. You know you are not worthy of such an encounter so you come in utter humility in your unworthiness but in the confidence of a child. There is nothing you can bring to offer Him that will impress Him, you can only offer yourself which is all He wants. You offer yourself in submission, uncertain of what He may ask of you but completely confident not only in His love for you but also in His character that He is only and utterly good. You offer your praise to Him for His attributes, for His goodness and His greatness. You offer your thanks to Him for all He has done for you and for those around you. But it is when you truly worship, when you offer your adoration, you offer your reverence for Him and your deference to Him that you sense His pleasure. As you empty yourself of adoration for Him, He fills you with the never-ending rushing river of His love and His grace. But it’s not about you at all, it is all about Him. It’s just that this is what you were created to do and you are now doing the most fulfilling thing you could possibly do and the most important thing you could possibly do. You may worship in a song that expresses your adoration and love. You may worship in prayer or in just speaking your love and devotion to Him. At some point in the service you may worship in presenting your material offering as an expression of His supreme value and as an expression of your absolute trust.
When we think of worship, we must think of emptying ourself of everything and offering it to God. We must think of acting in absolute humility and deference to the God of the universe. Scripture often gives us the picture of people who encountered God. They often fell on their faces in humility and worship. We see this in Revelation 1, in Daniel, in Numbers 20 in 1 Chronicles 29, in Nehemiah 8, in 1 Kings 18. Even the idol Dagon, when faced with the Ark of the Covenant, God caused the idol to fall face down in His presence. Falling prostrate is an act of reverence, of submission, of deference and of humility. Of course that is not the only posture for worship. We could argue that as David brought the Ark of the Lord back to Jerusalem that he was worshiping also. After every 6 steps David made an offering. Scripture says that David danced before the Lord with everything in him. His wife was ticked off at him because he behaved in an undignified way but David remarked that he was not dancing for an audience of people but he was dancing before the Lord. In these actions, completely the opposite of falling prostrate David was worshiping and we know this because underlying the posture and the outward manifestation, David was offering everything he had, dignity and all, for the glory of God. The core of worship remained while the manifestation changed. The act of worship is an act of emptying ourselves before God and recognizing His ultimate supremacy.
When we think of the songs we sing during our church services and songs we hear on the radio, often times they are songs of celebration of what God has done for us. Or they may be songs of encouragement of what God may do for us. These are not worship songs. They are about us and often they are about what we get from God, not what we give to Him. That doesn’t mean they are wrong or bad. Certainly there are many songs with bad theology but leaving that aside, we can still offer songs of praise and thanksgiving but we should be careful to know the difference between these and actual worship. Just because a song is about God does not make it a worship song. A worship song is a song expressing our adoration, our devotion, our reverence, ourselves to God. Just because I am thankful for my car does not mean I worship it. And just because I am thankful to God for something does not mean I am worshiping Him but worship Him we must. Let’s just be careful to identify what we are truly doing lest we think we are worshiping while we are completely missing the mark.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” Then it answers, “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” This is what we are doing when we worship. When we glorify God, we exalt Him. We lift Him up. We make Him the object of our attention, of our favor and we make much of Him. He is centerstage. He is center focus. Everything else is peripheral. One writer described it as everything around become shadows in the light of Him. When we do that we necessarily are humbled because He gets the full spotlight. The second part of that answer is equally important. We enjoy Him forever. When we enjoy something, our affections are turned toward that thing. We find satisfaction and contentment there. We stop searching for something better, but instead, we bask in the goodness of that thing. Again that thing takes center stage. John Piper says it well when he says, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.” For someone to truly enjoy something or someone, he or she gives attention, deference and affection to that thing or person.
The worship of God is not only the one thing you were created to do, it is not only the greatest thing you could possibly do with your life, it is also expected and required by God. The opposite of worship is unthinkable when it comes to God. In Exodus 20 God says He is a jealous God. In fact in Exodus 34, He says His name is “Jealous.” In a world that tries to tell us that everything is a shade of gray, this is really black and white. We have two options, either God is everything we need or He is not enough. Imaging telling your spouse, “I love you but you are just not enough for me.” That does not end well. And we know as humans that a spouse actually cannot fulfill all our needs, we have need for friendships and more importantly we have a spiritual need of God. God does not share the limitations of our human spouses. To tell God, “You are everything to me” is an act of worship. To tell God by words or action, “You are not enough for me.” is an act of rebellion and defiance.
So what would a true worship service look like? It may take various forms but what would be non-negotiable would be that it would be making much about God and leaving ourselves to be only an offering for Him. It would express our joy, our satisfaction, the focus of our affection on who God is, not on His creation or His works or what He has done for us. It would be offering our affection, our devotion, our deference and our reverence to Him. Of course we may want to praise Him for His creation and we may thank Him for His works as a part of and as an act of our worship but we must be careful to truly pursue authentic worship. Are we thanking and praising Him merely for the benefits we received or have we set ourselves aside and we are thanking and praising Him based on His character and His greatness. Thanksgiving and praise because of benefits we have received from Him are wholly appropriate and good. Let’s just be careful to distinguish between sincere thanksgiving or praise and authentic worship. The focus and object of authentic worship must by definition be God or else we move into a realm of idolatry.
Prologue
Relevant?
Defining Church
The Purpose of the Church
The Radiant Bride
Worship
Worship in the Church
Holy Huddle