“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.” (Psalm 95:1–7, NKJV)
What is worship?
What is worship to you?
Is worship what we do when we come together on Sunday or is it the entirety of what we do as believers? Is worship that part of the service when we sing songs about God together or is worship something we do for God?
The dictionary defines worship as an act of devotion and reverence towards a deity; the Bible identifies the act as the worth-ship of God and the whole duty of man (Eccl.12:13). Worship is an outpouring of love toward Him who has made all things, provided for all things and sustained all things and continues to do so. We worship God through our giving, through serving others, through songs and hymns and spiritual songs and in listening to and obeying the Word of God preached and taught. It is for worship that we meet every week in church but our worship cannot and must not be limited to only the time we spend in this place. One man said, “worship is the overflow of a believer’s joy because of God – who He is and what He’s done” but in another sense, it is a seeking after something we need.
A few years ago, John Piper writing on the subject of worship suggested that worship should be our coming to God for Him. In the article, John wrote about a small group of believers who went to help a man in the community who was in great need. When the man asked those who had come why they were there their response was “we are here for you.” They were there to perform a service for the man – many, John suggested, come into church with the same mindset towards God in worship. But God needs nothing from us at all – it is we who are in need. John continued, “suppose the day upon which that small group went to serve the man was ridiculously hot and while they were doing the work a truck pulls up offering ice-cold, refreshing water and they run up to the window of the truck saying ‘we’re here for you;’” now we have come to the right mind of worship.
God does not need our worship but we need the God whom we worship. We add nothing to God when we lift up our hands in celebration of who He is; we simply give Him what He deserves because He is God but I think that God is pleased and glorified when those He loves express their love back to Him.
Worship Celebrates God…
[v.1-2] “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.”
I recently heard the testimony of a woman who had lost her young toddler in Disney World for an eternity of fifteen minutes. A thousand thoughts must have run through her head – what ifs and self-condemnation but she did not dwell on these; she prayed to God and God returned what she had lost. What was her response?
Tears of joy and praise to God for His mercy. Did she sing to Him? Probably not but did she shout out a heartfelt halleluiah? I imagine she did.
Worship is a many faceted thing and can be expressed in the songs we sing, the words we shout and through the action of our bodies. In life, worship is doing “whatever your hands find to do” (Eccl 9:10) or as the Apostle Paul put it, worship is doing “whatever you do, do all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10_31). We worship the Lord when we tithe, when we serve Him and when we serve others. The Book of Psalms bears witness to worship being something sung with or without instrumental accompaniment – in those days the people even worshipped the Lord with dancing (Psalm. 149:3 and 150:4). But the (HB) word used for singing in (v.1) can also be defined as a shout for joy to Him who is “the Rock of our salvation” and our source for help. Worship is coming before God’s face or “presence” and singing or shouting words like these found in [Psalm 96:1,4]:
“Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.”
But in order to celebrate God we must reflect upon His goodness.
Worship Requires Reflection…
[v.3-5] “For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.”
Worship requires eyes to recognize the presence of God.
In (Genesis 28:10-17) God had been with Jacob as he fled from his brother into the wilderness between Beersheba and Haran but Jacob did not know it until after he had seen a vision of God; then in [v 16-.17] he declared:
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”
Likewise, the voice speaking to Moses from the burning bush awakened the prophet to the presence of God when he said [Ex.3:5]:
“Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”
It is God who opens our eyes to God – we cannot recognize or discern the difference between the mundane and the supernatural without His intervention upon our sight. Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote: “Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush AFIRE with God – but only he who SEES takes off his shoes – the rest sit around it and pick blackberries.”
All of God’s creation declares Him and exalts Him. “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork” wrote the psalmist in [Psalm 19:1]. Paul, reflecting on our Creator wrote in [Romans 1:20]:
“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,”
From Mount Everest to Death Valley and from Niagara Falls to the Mariana Trench – God made it all, God is present there and in control of it all; there is no place where God is not (see Psalm 139:7-18)
Recognizing the power, wisdom, grace, glory, holiness and sovereignty of God in worship leads us to ask with King David – “Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that You have brought me this far?” [1 Chron 17:16]
Worship Communicates Thirst…
Worship is an expression of thirst for God
“O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. So, I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus, I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.” [Psalm 63:1-5]
When you entered into the church on Sunday (for instance) what was your mindset? Did you come to church or did you come to worship? If you merely came to church you’ll probably be satisfied to leave pretty much as you came but if you came to worship you will not likely be satisfied until you have experienced God through His Word and until you have emptied yourself in praise at His altar.
To be clear, this article isn’t about worship styles and preferences this is about desire – true worshippers desire more God in their lives. What I mean is, they desire a deeper and closer connection with the Creator than they have. Consider this question:
“If you could have a happy marriage, healthy children, a successful career, good friends, fun vacations, a comfortable retirement, a painless death and no hell – would you be satisfied?”[i]
I would expect those who do not know or trust in the Lord to say that they’d be satisfied with such a life but can a true worshipper of God ever be satisfied with anything less than God? “O God, You are my God! Early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh logs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”
Can you say, “O God, as long as You are with me it is well no matter what life may bring”?
Worship is an expression of our thirst for God. Thirst for His wisdom, love, guidance, power…
Worship Requires Relationship…
[v.6-7] “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand.”
Finally, worship requires relationship, otherwise it’s like putting the cart in front of the horse. One day, every knee will bow ad every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (see Phil. 2:11) but that worship is not relational. The worst of men will bow in that day in recognition of the Lord’s sovereignty but believers worship Him not only because He made us but because He is “our God.”
In a general sense, the Lord God provides for all people from His treasury – He gives each of us air to breath, life to live and I think, an opportunity to turn to Him through Jesus Christ. But it is only after we have come to trust in Jesus that we are able to worship in a way that is pleasing to God. John Newtons song comes to mind as I think of it:
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now I am found, was blind but now I see.”
It is from the knowledge of God’s love and the application of God’s grace to our lives that we are able to worship the Lord for all He is worth. If worship is an overflow of our joy and delight in God as we reflect on His goodness, mercy and grace towards us then all worship is tied to the relationship we have with God through Jesus Christ.
All of this boils down to how desperate you were for God to intervene in your life in the first place. Those who have truly trusted in Jesus once upon a time realized that they were by nature desperate sinners, desperately wicked and doomed to destruction from birth because of their sin. But in time they learned that God loved them and Jesus died for them – then they called out to Him in their need and received the forgiveness of sin and newness of life through the Spirit by whom they now not only call God “Abba” but they also serve and praise the living God.
But there are those who came to Jesus for the wrong reasons too.
There are some who have said they came to Jesus because they did not want to go to hell. You might be thinking, “what’s wrong with that?” Consider it for a moment from God’s perspective,
“For a person to say that the main reason he or she came to Christ was to escape hell would be like a woman who said that the only reason she married her husband was to get away from her parents or like the man who said that he married his wife because he had a load of debt and she had money – I couldn’t think of any other way out of my debt so I married her.”
If you only came to Christ to have your sin debt paid and to avoid hell – you missed the point of His coming.
He came to give new life to every sinner who would trust in Him. Yes, He gave us a place in heaven. Yes, because of His grace and forgiveness we will not go to hell or taste the wrath of God. Yes, Jesus paid it all. But the new life that He gave is to the praise and glory of the Father – this is the goal, the aim and the chief end of man, to glorify in the flesh and the spirit (1 Cor. 6:20) Him who bought us with the price of Christ’s blood.
[i] Collin Smith
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