On Worship

I've been noticing a trend in my studies of God lately. All that I have been reading and listening seems to come back to how to worship God.

What I've come to understand is that worship is not merely standing in a church and singing a song. Singing in itself is not worship, rather, it's the inward expression of love and praise to God that is the worship. I guess that seems kind of obvious, but it struck me to the core because when I sing to God I try to restrain my display of emotion. I've never raised my hands to God as I've always felt that it was a self glorifying thing. Sort of like, "Hey, look at me, I'm feeling awesome". No, I'd rather people look to God. But, now I'm thinking that I should do it, because if I feel the desire to praise God, I should do it regardless of what others may think.

Afterall, I would do that at a football game, a baseball game, or a concert. As Mark Discoll has said, "Being at a football game is like being at a giant church service for football." It seems at the very core of human nature is to give worship and praise to that which we hold of highest value. The task for the christian is to ensure that God holds that position in our lives.

I've recently picked up the book, "Desiring God" by John Piper, and his mantra in the book is "be a Christian Hedonist." By that he means that a christian ought to seek his greatest pleasure and desire in God. His firm belief is that one brings glory to God by worshiping Him, and you worship God by finding your greatest pleasure in Him. At least that's what I gather in the first few chapters, I am still reading this book.

So, the question becomes, how do I apply this. How do I correctly love God? I recently read a sermon by Jonathan Edwards in his collection on "Charity and Its Fruits." The topic of the fist lecture was "All True Grace in the Heart, Summed up in Charity, or Love." In this lecture, he quotes the famous verse on love in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have no charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have no charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

The word charity, instead of love, in this passage really challenged my understanding of it. It seemed to me that this verse wasn't talking about my love, which is as I've always understood it. Rather, it was talking about God's charitable love to me. In essence, if I do not have God's love, I am nothing.

I thought about this for a while, and its implications and was quite confounded. How do I get God's love? Is it just faith in my Lord Jesus we are talking about here, or something more? Well, I came across a sermon today by John Piper that seems to have brought this home for me. In his sermon on "The New Birth Produces Love" where he covers 1 John 4:7-21 he emphasizes verse 10:

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

As he spelled out the portion on "not that we have loved God" and what it meant, he said that "He (the author of 1 John) is emphasizing that the nature and the origin of love does not lie in our response to God. That is not where love starts. That is not mainly what love is. Love is, and love starts with God. And if anything we feel or do can be called love, it will be because we are connected with God by the new birth."

In essence, as it seems to me through my studies to this point, in order to worship God, one must first have God's love, given through faith in the act of Jesus, and then bend that love towards God and towards our neighbors. As Jesus himself states when asked what the greatest commandment is in Matthew 22:36-40

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

In conclusion, it is evident that in order to properly worship God one must first believe in Jesus, and in so doing you are given God's love, which enables you to love Him back, and indeed truly love those around you.

-Ryan