God-given medium as an effective part of true worship. If there is anything that I hope this chapter does, it is to move people back to the centrality of worship both corporately and privately. Corporate worship all too easily slips back into the learning classroom mold when the center of things becomes a teaching sermon. Worship services should be about worship. People must self-consciously worship, and the one in charge of the service must deliberately lead the congregation into worship. Even the result of the sermon should be a worship response—praise to God for what He has done, awe at His works, or repulsion at our waywardness before Him.
On a personal level, for many people their devotional time centers on a reading of inspirational material or Bible study. Nothing is wrong with such a practice, but again the basic mode becomes the homework cognitive learning model. Devotion time should be at its core—worship. Again, even the study must lead to worship. A time of prostration, a time of praise with hands and heart uplifted, a time of listening to music and responding and joining in, a time of singing or playing of musical instruments—such things are all true devotion and worship, not just something preliminary.
Many worship directors cannot truly lead because they have not worshiped personally in preparation beforehand. And many worshipers find corporate worship a challenge because they also have not worshiped personally. A person transformed in their private prayer discovers new life in otherwise unchanged corporate worship. They find something catching, something drawing—yes, even something evangelistic—about corporate worship that takes place in spirit and truth. When you enter a place where people have a heart for God and are reaching out to Him, you sense it. You find yourself drawn to it and want to be a part of it. Many churches are not evangelistic because, lacking true worship, their sense of God’s presence has become only a distant memory, not a present experience.
Practical Steps
How does one begin to understand and experience worship? How can one who lacks true worship find it? I have a few suggestions.
First, reflect on or seek a new experience of the grace, love, and awesomeness of God. All true worship springs from a sense of who God is, which then reveals who we are. Isaiah in his experience recorded in Isaiah 6 offers a model. His vision of the awesomeness and holiness of God drove him to worship and a deep sense of his own uncleanness. This in turn led to a statement of God’s forgiveness and cleansing and a divine commissioning. Such a realization about God is not a doctrine or a theology, but a whole person insight that affects all that we are.
Second, deliberately begin to take time personally to act and react in response to the experience of God. For Westerners that may best be done personally. Kneel and thank Him for His goodness. Sing a song or write a poem as an offering for what He has done for you. Stand in awe and bow your head at a sunrise or sunset. Lift your hands and offer Him all you are. Voice out loud your praise. Do whatever comes naturally as you respond fully to Him. Remember that what you are doing is not some preliminary to something else. You are fulfilling the essence, the core of a believer’s life. Let your joy and your feelings flow out in praise. You will be surprised by His presence and the response will grow and the presence will deepen. Make worship a major part of your personal private devotional time.
Third, let your new experience of worship transform your corporate experience. One student who studied the topic of worship came back and told how understanding worship itself had transformed her corporate worship experience even though nothing in the actual order of service changed. She had been transformed personally, and that had altered her corporate worship. How does this happen? Pause before entering church and thank God for a place where His name can be praised. Ask Him to move in you and in others during the service. Enter the sanctuary with joy, thanking God for inviting you and for another week of life. Look at other parishioners as brothers and sisters in worship and thank God for them. Kneel briefly as you sit down and then start your worship immediately. Participate fully in every part of the service, listening to the prayers and singing the songs from your heart. Do everything as an offering to God. You are there not to get a blessing, but to give a blessing, having come to bless and to worship God by joining in a corporate worship fest. Not all will know what you are doing, but getting even a few to start joining you will transform the spirit of the service. The worship service will become different even though outwardly it appears to remain the same. And in the end, the order of service may itself begin to alter.
As I teach many eager seminary students, some assume that just changing the order of service or the type of music will bring a worship renewal. That is not true. What needs to alter are people’s hearts and minds. When people meet God, worship will transform itself naturally. The order of service and music can help facilitate true worship, but having the right heart for worship is still the key.
Conclusion
Humanity’s initial true response to God’s action and presence was worship. That never ends. The book of Revelation portrays the inhabitants of heaven in worship forever. Many things begin and then end. But worship for true believers never ceases. Shouldn’t we heed God’s call and start experiencing real worship now? It is one thing that we can enjoy forever.
When we truly worship, we begin at a deep level to see God in all His love and glory. The natural next step is to look at ourselves. When Isaiah did that (Isaiah 6), he immediately found himself overwhelmed with a keen sense of his sin and unworthiness. Following that sequence, our next chapter deals with suggestions to help us take the step of serious self-examination and find God’s solution to our deep need.
8 John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Mission (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), p. 11.
9 Note the whole passage in Matthew 22:34–40 and the parallel in Mark 12:28–31.
10 See Exodus 20:1–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21.
11 Gerhard Friedrich and Geoffrey W. Bromiley, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), Vol VI, pp. 758–766.
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