Worship: The Ultimate Priority

by John F. MacArthur Jr.

In fact, the supreme motive in our redemption is not for us to receive anything. Rather we have been redeemed so that God may receive worship—so that our lives might glorify Him.

To be concerned primarily with the blessings is to experience salvation in a shallow, self-centered manner. Jesus rebuked such an attitude in Matthew 6:33, when He said, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

Worship God. That is the everlasting gospel, the message that God has given from eternity to eternity. It is the theme of Scripture, the theme of eternity, the theme of redemptive history—to worship the true and living and glorious God. Before creation, throughout history, and into eternity future, worship is the theme, the central issue, the true purpose, and the ultimate priority for which everything was ever made.

Those two things—justification before God and true worship of Him—are inseparable. One does not become a true worshiper without first being justified. And every person who is truly justified will become a true worshiper. Jesus said, “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47). The converse is equally true: when a sinner understands and believes that God has freely forgiven all sin’s guilt, that person will invariably respond with the truest kind of heartfelt praise and gratitude. That’s why once we truly believe, we are done with unbridled sin, superficial religion, and false gods. We adore the living and true God. The one who refuses to let go of other gods or turn away from pet sins has not really begun to grasp the truth of the gospel. Such a person is no true worshiper.

How and whom you worship also lays bare the true thoughts and intentions of your heart.

We are consecrated to God and the pursuit of His glory. So we “press on so that [we] may lay hold of that for which also [we were] laid hold of by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12). The redeemed person will never abandon that quest because he can never be truly satisfied with worship that falls short of what praise to God should be. That’s precisely why we long for heaven.

We are true worshipers who worship the Father in spirit and in truth. As believers still “waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons [and] the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23), we do not worship as perfectly or as consistently as we ought to, but nevertheless, we are true worshipers. In fact, acceptable worship is the chief characteristic that distinguishes believers from unbelievers. Worship is the first visible expression of true faith.

In spite of what many people nowadays think, the distinguishing mark of authentic faith is not love—as if a generic sort of benevolent kindness were unique to Christianity. Actually, the true mark of a genuine Christian is that he worships God in the spirit. All other virtues, including the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), have their roots in worship. Real love begins with love for the true God (1 John 4:7–8). Fullness of joy is found only in Christ (John 15:11; 17:13). There is no true peace for those who haven’t found peace with God (Romans 5:1).

Worship cannot occur where He is not believed in, adored, and obeyed.

The Bible presupposes, rather than proves, God’s existence. Scripture says this about God in Psalm 90:2: “Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” That is a classic doctrinal affirmation about God. It tells us that God is the only God: “You are God.” It tells us that God is the eternal God: “From everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” It tells us that God is the creator God: “You gave birth to the earth and the world.”

One logical reason to accept the existence of God is the teleological argument. That comes from the Greek word teleos, which means “perfect result,” “end,” or “finish.” Something that is completed and perfected shows evidence of a maker.

The teleological argument says that the order in the universe is evidence that a supreme intelligence, God, created it.

A second argument for God is the aesthetic argument. It claims that because there is beauty and truth there has to be somewhere in the universe a standard on which beauty and truth are based.

The volitional argument says that because the human creature faces a myriad of choices and has the ability to make willful decisions, there must be somewhere an infinite will, a...

The moral argument says that the very fact we know there is right and wrong suggests the necessity of an absolute standard. If anything is right and anything is wrong, somewhere...

The cosmological argument is the argument of cause and effect. It concludes that someone made the universe, because every effect must be traceable to a cause. The cause of infinity must be infinite. The cause of endless t...

God is not just a cosmic force. Our attributes of emotion, intellect, and will did not just happen—God made us in His image. He has revealed Himself in the Bible to be a Person.

God is a Spirit. That means He does not exist in a body that can be touched and seen like our bodies. Jesus said, “A spirit does not have flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39). An understanding of these basic realities, Jesus said, is essential to acceptable worship: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

Jesus affirmed the importance of monotheistic theology. In Mark 12, a scribe asked Him what was the greatest of the commandments. He said, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’” (vv. 29–30). Without denying His own deity, and yet at the same time acknowledging that there is only one God, Jesus taught that the greatest commandment is to give total allegiance with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength to the one true God.

In John 10:30, Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” That is a claim of absolute equality with God; yet at the same time it is a reaffirmation that there is but one God.

First Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God?” And as proof, it adds, “the Spirit of God dwells in you.” In chapter 6 the argument is carried further. Verse 19 says “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.” And verse 20 adds the exhortation, “therefore glorify God in your body.” That equates the Holy Spirit with God. Along with dozens of other verses (indeed, the entire teaching of the New Testament) that text underscores this truth: the Holy Spirit is God.

The simplest way to perceive the Trinity is to read the Bible from the beginning to the end.

God is one, yet He is three. I haven’t got the faintest idea how to explain that divine mystery to everyone’s complete satisfaction, but my own inability to articulate it in a way that answers everyone’s questions doesn’t diminish my faith in God or my conviction that He exists as One in three Persons.

More than He desires any external act or protocol that we might think of as worship, God desires that we know Him. The knowledge of the true God, then, provides the intimacy of acceptable worship.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

No one perfectly understands God. Again, from the very outset we must confess that God is incomprehensible; He cannot be confined to the capacity of even the largest human intellect; He cannot be limited by any kind of human definition. Although He has revealed much about Himself to us, everything we know about God we know in the most primitive terms.

First, the Bible teaches that God is not susceptible to change. He is unchangeable and unchanging.

God does not change. Change is either for the better or for the worse. Both are inconceivable with God—He couldn’t get any better and wouldn’t change for the worse. There is nothing about Him that needs to change.

That God does not change is a great source of comfort to believers. It means that His love is forever. His forgiveness is forever. His salvation is forever. His promises are forever.

Further, God’s power is clearly visible in His ability to redeem the lost. In fact, His power is more wondrous in redemption than in creation, because in creation there was no opposition, no devil to be subdued, no thundering law to be silenced, no death to be conquered, no sin to be pardoned, no hell to be shut, no death on the cross to be suffered.

There is no need to fear falling away or losing our salvation. Paul wrote to Timothy, “I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

God wants us to know Him. Yes, “it is the glory of God to conceal a matter,” according to Proverbs 25:2. God does sometimes shroud important truths in mystery for a time or for specific reasons. But notice the rest of that verse: “The glory of kings is to search out a matter.” God wants us to pursue understanding, beginning with knowledge of Him and what He is like.

“‘Am I a God who is near,’ declares the Lord, ‘And not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:23). In other words, God is not an idol confined to a location. He cannot be contained in a building. We don’t have to go somewhere specific to worship because God is there.

Philippians 4:5–6 includes this phrase: “The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing.” Although that verse is often understood to be talking about the Second Coming, it actually refers to Christ’s perpetual presence. He’s there all the time. Realize it. It is one of His attributes, an integral part of His character.

Can a Christian be separated from God? No! No one in the universe can be separated from God essentially, and a believer cannot be separated from Him relationally, either. He is always there. In 2 Timothy 2:13, we are told that even if our faith begins to falter, He abides faithful.

That God is present everywhere ought to motivate us to obey Him more carefully. When we sin, whether it is a sin of thought or a sin of words or a sin of actions, it is done in the presence of God. Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses, and in verse 8, Moses acknowledges the implications of God’s omnipresence with regard to our sin: “You have placed our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.” In other words, when we sin, it is as if we ascended beyond the clouds, came into the throne room of God, walked up to the foot of the throne of God and committed the sin right before His face. That is a sobering thought.

So God knows even the most trivial things. Why would God bother to count our hair? He doesn’t count it; He simply knows it.

Of all the attributes of God, holiness is the one that most uniquely describes Him. In reality, this is a summarization of all His other attributes. The word holiness refers to His separateness, His otherness, the fact that He is unlike any other being. It indicates His complete and infinite perfection. Holiness is the attribute of God that binds all the others together. Properly understood, it will revolutionize the quality of our worship.

. Authentic faith therefore entails shedding every pretense of our own righteousness and confessing that we are hopeless sinners. In fact, even the most fastidious attempts to earn merit of our own count for nothing in God’s sight.

God’s holiness is best seen in His hatred of sin. God cannot tolerate sin; He is totally removed from it.

That does not mean that God hates sacrifices and offerings and festivals and music per se. God desires all those things, because He instituted them. But when the instruments of worship are tainted with sin, God hates them.

God’s holiness is visible in many ways. It is seen in the creation of man, to begin with. In Ecclesiastes 7:29, we read, “Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.” In other words, when God made man, He made him to reflect His holiness. Sin was man’s rebellion against that purpose.

Typo. Should be Romans 2:15.

Second, God’s holiness is seen in the moral law. One of the primary reasons God instituted the law under Moses was to demonstrate His holiness. When God laid down a legal standard of morality, He proved Himself to be a righteous, moral, holy being.

God’s holiness is evident in His sacrificial law, although we might not normally think of it that way. When we see God commanding that animals be slain as sacrifices and their blood sprinkled all over, we see in a graphic way that death is the result of sin.

In a related sense, God’s holiness is also seen in judgment on sin. When the Bible speaks (as it does in 2 Thessalonians 1:7, for example) of Jesus’ coming in flaming fire and taking vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel; and when it describes (as in Jude 15) the condemnation of the ungodly, we see how God hates sin.

The supreme demonstration of the holiness of God is seen in the cross. That is where God bore man’s sin in the person of Christ and gave the greatest illustration of His holiness—His hatred of sin and power over it.

A worshiping life must affirm the utter holiness of God; in fact, an acknowledgment and understanding of God’s holiness is essential to true worship.

When we see God as holy, our instant and only reaction is to see ourselves as unholy. Between God’s holiness and humanity’s unholiness is a gulf.

Without such a vision of God’s holiness, true worship is not possible. Real worship is not giddy. It does not rush into God’s presence unprepared and insensitive to His majesty. It is not shallow, superficial, or flippant. Worship is life lived in the presence of an infinitely righteous and omnipresent God by one utterly aware of His holiness and consequently overwhelmed with a sense of his or her own unholiness.