True Worshipers: Seeking What Matters to God

by Bob Kauflin

“We should consider it the great end of our existence to be found numbered among the worshipers of

Music is a part of worshiping God, but it was never meant to be the heart of it.

Broadly speaking, worship in spirit and truth is worship that springs from a sincere heart and lines up with the truth of God’s Word.

To worship God in truth, says New Testament scholar D. A. Carson, “is first and foremost a way of saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality has dawned and the shadows are being swept away.”4 And Jesus is the one who gives the life-giving Spirit, who produces rivers of living water in a believer’s soul (John 7:38–39). It’s the Spirit who brings life to our spirits and enables us to know, love, and worship God the Father through Jesus Christ.

Jesus told the Samaritan woman not only that the Father was seeking true worshipers, but that he came to make her one.

We begin by acknowledging our inability to worship God unless he draws us by his grace and reveals himself to us through his Word.

the essence of worshiping God, which is exalting him in our ...

Worship is ultimately about God, but it’s not solely about God.

worship begins with God’s extravagant grace, not our earnest efforts.

Eden was an idyllic environment. No sin. No imperfection. No decay or defilement. Paradise. But it wasn’t the environment that made Eden so special. It was the Presence.

Adam and Eve instinctively knew why they had been made. They breathed, ate, slept, played, and labored to exalt the goodness and greatness of God.

Our first parents were born worshiping. But when they ate the forbidden fruit, their worship was redirected. Duped by a serpent, they rejected the gift of worshiping God and chose to worship themselves. They thought God could be improved upon. They were wrong. And as a result of their decision, all creation plunged into futility and despair. Ashamed, confused, and afraid, Adam and Eve tried to hide their nakedness and rebellion from God. But God came seeking. Rather than put them to death, which he had every right to do, God covered Adam and Eve with animal skins. God drew the first drop of blood in his creation. For us. He sought us out and provided for us when all we wanted to do was run from him.

It sounded too good to be true. But grace always does.

worship that doesn’t begin with mercy is no longer worship.

Our worship of God begins with God revealing himself to us and is sustained by that revelation.

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

True worship is always a response to God’s Word. John Stott has wisely said: “God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him. He must disclose to us who he is before we can offer him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our

We can’t worship God apart from his Word. It defines, directs, and inspires our worship. Scripture provides doctrinal fuel for our emotional fire.

Charles Spurgeon succinctly said, “He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his

After centuries of God warning his people not to draw close without the proper sacrifices, God now cries out through the blood of Jesus, his Son, “Come near!” His once-for-all sacrifice has thrown open the door to the throne room of God. We come at God’s invitation and by God’s enabling.

To worship God is to humble everything about ourselves and exalt everything about him.

Loving God turns duty into delight, perfunctory obedience into passionate pursuit, stoic endurance into faith-filled hope.

Loving others, even when they’re unlovable, exalts God because it reflects his heart toward us.

The purpose of faith isn’t to secure wealth and health in the here and now but to remind ourselves that in Jesus Christ, God has already given us everything

Words of encouragement exalt God by pointing out the ways he has been at work in the lives of others.

Serving rooted in grace exalts God because it communicates that there is greater joy in serving others than in being self-centered,

The fact that each has received a gift means we’re never consigned to being mere spectators.

When we know our motivation comes from God, our serving will be characterized by joy and faithfulness, even when the task is unpleasant or inconvenient.

The gospel is the greatest encouragement we could ever hope to have as we seek to exalt God through our lives. Jesus lived the life of perfect obedience we could never live, and that life is now credited to us. He endured God’s wrath as our substitute to reconcile us to God. The Father raised Jesus from the dead to prove that his payment for our sins was accepted and to assure us that one day we too will be raised from death to

“Christian proclamation might make the gospel audible,” writes pastor and theologian Mark Dever, “but Christians living together in local congregations make the gospel visible

Most of us instinctively (sinfully?) like to be with people who are a lot like us—people who like the same music, eat at the same restaurants, and shop at the same stores. But 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.

God’s inherent glory never increases or diminishes. But that glory is more visible when we meet together to worship him.

When we come together to “pour forth the fame of [God’s] abundant goodness” (Ps. 145:7) through singing, praying, serving, and preaching, more people can see that God is worthy of praise.

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.

We aren’t meant to block people out or avoid them. They’re a primary way we receive from

We typically think of edification as the responsibility of those who serve publicly,

We evaluate the quality of our time together based on the actions of others, not our

What I do know is that God gifts different people in different ways, and every gift is important for his glory. God has designed you for specific purposes. You may not be able to serve in the way you want to serve, but there’s no question that God has given you gifts to serve somewhere.

That’s why Paul says in verse 18 that “God arranged the members in the body . . . as he chose.” This is God’s design, not ours. Our unity is strengthened and displayed as we appreciate the diverse ways God has made

Just as there is no body part we’d be happy to lose, there is no one in the church who doesn’t have a purpose in God

“The persons with deceptively ordinary and unprestigious gifts are as necessary for the proper functioning of the community as those who put on a more glittery display. All are of equal

We lack love when we serve others to gain glory for ourselves rather than Jesus.

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

We outdo one another in showing honor because we’ve received the unimaginable honor of being called children of God

True worshipers have the good of others in view because they have Christ’s glory in view. The two are inseparable.

Here’s why. Your voice, along with all the other voices in your church, has been redeemed by the Savior. As we sing, he presents our song to the Father for his glory and our joy. “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

The critical question is not Do I have a voice? but Do I have a song?

It’s a song we were never meant to sing alone.

songs enable the word of Christ, the great Redeemer, to dwell in our hearts richly (Col.

Paul and Silas, after being stripped and beaten and tossed in a Philippian prison, were singing hymns to God (Acts