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Music is a part of worshiping God, but it was never meant to be the heart of it.
worship in spirit and truth is worship that springs from a sincere heart and lines up with the truth of God’s Word.
Any definition of true worship that denies or minimizes God’s supremacy, authority, and uniqueness is unbiblical and will lead to idolatry.
Our first responsibility as Christians is not to give to God but to receive from him.
when it comes to being a true worshiper, receiving from God is our calling from first to last.
Jesus is born. In an act of unfathomable love, Deity becomes dust, the Maker becomes the maligned, the Creator becomes the cursed. God comes in Christ to restore the relationship we rejected in the garden. We learn that the greatest gift God gives us is himself.
We come to God by grace or we don’t come at all. We come by receiving a gift, not by doing a deed. We don’t create worship; we respond to what we’ve received in Jesus Christ—eternal life. And that gift continues to be the basis upon which we come to worship God.
Worship that’s acceptable to God, writes theologian Derek Kidner, “must be more than flattery and more than guess-work. It is the loving homage of the committed to the Revealed.”4
Worship never begins with us; it is always a response to the truth. It flows out of an understanding of who God is and what he has done for us in Christ. It begins with his revelation and redemption. So we must ensure that the Bible, which contains that revelation and points us to God’s work of redemption, stays right at the heart of our meetings and our own spiritual lives.5
True worship is always a response to God’s Word.
The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship.”
Scripture provides doctrinal fuel for our emotional fire.
The Word of God is the primary way God begins and deepens our relationship with him, and is essential for true worship.
Knowing our Bibles well doesn’t deaden our worship of God but rather informs and enflames it.
If we want to grow as true worshipers of God, we won’t simply listen to more music—we’ll seek to encounter him in our Bibles.
Many of the most precious truths we live by today were more clearly defined as a response to heresy. The truths of the Christian faith have often been tested and confirmed in the fires of controversy and conflict.
Unless we read our Bibles well, we won’t know the God we’re worshiping. When we fail to be specific about who God is and what he’s done, we’re really saying we want our own God.
Michael Horton reminds us, “Vagueness about the object of our praise inevitably leads to making our own praise the object. Praise therefore becomes an end in itself, and we are caught up in our own ‘worship experience’ rather than in the God whose character and acts are the only proper focus.”
Every church or individual Christian who claims to be Spirit-led must be Word-fed. If we want to know more of the Spirit’s power in our lives, we would be wise to fill ourselves with the riches of his Word.
Worship in the wrong direction is called idolatry. It’s looking to anything other than God for our ultimate satisfaction, comfort, security, or joy.
we’re deceived if we think singing is necessarily the same as doing. That would be like saying, “I hug you,” as I pass by my wife, thinking my words are a sufficient replacement for actual physical contact.
words are meaningless without actions to back them up.
Worship offered to God can’t be confined to what we do in a room on Sunday morning. It’s more than simply lifting our hands or having a transcendent emotional experience. Our worship includes the ordinary and mundane things we think, say, and do each day, as well as the more significant and spectacular. It’s an all-of-life response to the forgiveness we’ve received through the gospel.
true worshipers, enabled and redeemed by God, respond to God’s self-revelation in ways that exalt his glory in Christ in their minds, affections, and wills, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Worship begins in our hearts but always works its way out into visible actions.
whatever we love most will determine what we genuinely worship.
It brings no glory to God if we claim deep affection for God while harboring ill will toward people.
Loving others, even when they’re unlovable, exalts God because it reflects his heart toward us. It tells others we’re his children.
Simply rehearsing our problems doesn’t exalt God; recalling his character in the midst of them does.
a primary root of unbelief is a refusal to thank God (Rom. 1:21).
Obeying God isn’t legalism, nor is it optional.
Whether or not we proclaim God’s greatness, creation always will.
Every word we say is worship.
Our words are not our own—even when we share them on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, or texts. They were given to us to draw attention to the living Word, without whom we would have no words at all.
God never intended our worship to be just “me and God.” That’s because our worship is the outflow of the relationships the Father, Son, and Spirit have always enjoyed.
God doesn’t give us a choice about whether we want to be in the church. If we’re Christians, we’re already part of the family.
God is glorified when people who have no visible connection or similarity joyfully meet together week after week. They do it not because they’re all the same but because the gospel has brought them together.
True worshipers desire to exalt God’s name together
No one is baptized into Christ who isn’t also baptized into his body.
When a football team wins the national championship, it gets more glory if the game is shown to millions throughout the country than if no one but you were to see it individually on closed-circuit TV. . . . Public glory obviously brings more glory than does private glory. Likewise, God gets more glory when you worship him with the church than when you worship him alone.
worship is ultimately about God, but one of the most important ways we worship God is by building up other members of the body.
the purpose of our meetings isn’t worship, but edification. To edify means to build up. Edification can take place through a variety of means, but the result is always the same. People are strengthened, encouraged, and helped.
Worship and edification are two sides of the same coin. When we serve others for their good, we’re bringing glory to God. And when we exalt God through our expressions of praise, prayer, and thanks, we’re building up those around us. At least, that’s the way God intends it to work.
There are no nongifted, dispensable people in the church. Every member of the body of Christ, and every member of a local church, is “unique, distinctive, irreplaceable, unrepeatable,”
God didn’t design the church to be a group of spectators watching others perform. Everyone is needed. Everyone participates.
Whenever I’m tempted to discouragement, anger, bitterness, comparison, or envy by someone else’s serving, it’s a sure sign that my serving lacks love and brings no glory to God.
If we’re built up by being rooted and grounded in Christ, the best way to edify others through our serving is to build them more into Christ.
We don’t serve one another so people will notice us. Rather, we use our gifts to the fullest to exalt the Giver of those gifts.
True worshipers have the good of others in view because they have Christ’s glory in view. The two are inseparable. We should never think about exalting God without thinking about serving and building up others as well.
“The human voice, given over to Jesus, and found in company with other voices given over similarly, produces a dignified and worthy song from storefront church to cathedral,” says Harold Best. “Singing is not an option for the Christian; no one is excused. Vocal skill is not a criterion.”
